Posted on Jan 4, 2017
Do you believe the military should do away with the "protected class"?
12.6K
59
16
2
2
0
Combat
Gender
Policy
Training
Responses: 9
8
8
0
What exactly is/are this protective class you are speaking of? I remember way back when the "protective class" was supposedly the ring knockers from the service academies who were given the better assignments and had miscues covered up or overlooked so they would have a god career.
From the tone of the post I'm guessing that it's something that many old timers may feel, that gender, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation may play a part in commanders being hesitant to discipline service members or pass them over for promotion due to concern over being pegged as a racist, misogynist, homophobe or Islamophobe.
Since Trump's election there has also been a great concern among these same groups of people that it's going to be "open season" on them.
I think its a huge can of worms, and I just hope it will be as should be, the most capable people getting the awards, promotion and retention.
I feel that no matter what there will be those who are prejudiced who will screw over capable people due to their own bigotry, and also a number of those who are substandard performers who will throw the SJW card when they don't get an outcome they desire.
From the tone of the post I'm guessing that it's something that many old timers may feel, that gender, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation may play a part in commanders being hesitant to discipline service members or pass them over for promotion due to concern over being pegged as a racist, misogynist, homophobe or Islamophobe.
Since Trump's election there has also been a great concern among these same groups of people that it's going to be "open season" on them.
I think its a huge can of worms, and I just hope it will be as should be, the most capable people getting the awards, promotion and retention.
I feel that no matter what there will be those who are prejudiced who will screw over capable people due to their own bigotry, and also a number of those who are substandard performers who will throw the SJW card when they don't get an outcome they desire.
(8)
(0)
Maj John Bell
As USNA grad, I get a kick out of the claim that Academy Grads get some special benefit.
In 11 years, I never had an academy grad as my reporting senior and only once had an academy grad as my reviewing officer.
I never had a fellow USNA grad go out of his way to form some sort of social link and I had plenty of non-academy grads make it "very" clear from the start that my commissioning source was a problem as far as they were concerned.
I had two plum assignments; barracks duty and embassy duty. When I asked my monitor why I got them, he said I was the only one that put them down as my duty preference on a FitRep. Everyone else they placed in those billets, in my cycle, they had to go reach out since they were considered high risk career ending voluntary assignments.
At least in the Marine Corps there was NO CAREER ADVANTAGE to bringing up the Academy and SOME SOCIAL RISK.
In 11 years, I never had an academy grad as my reporting senior and only once had an academy grad as my reviewing officer.
I never had a fellow USNA grad go out of his way to form some sort of social link and I had plenty of non-academy grads make it "very" clear from the start that my commissioning source was a problem as far as they were concerned.
I had two plum assignments; barracks duty and embassy duty. When I asked my monitor why I got them, he said I was the only one that put them down as my duty preference on a FitRep. Everyone else they placed in those billets, in my cycle, they had to go reach out since they were considered high risk career ending voluntary assignments.
At least in the Marine Corps there was NO CAREER ADVANTAGE to bringing up the Academy and SOME SOCIAL RISK.
(0)
(0)
5
5
0
I have never heard of a Protected Class...
there was Combat ... guy who got down dirty and shot...
Combat support... those who passed beans and Bullets and took the grunts into harms way...
Combat service support... those who fixed the Grunts and what the Grunts Broke and the machines the Combat support got AFU...
The only ones I remember as protected were the Folks in the Nose Bleed sections and the ones who Prayed ... "Twinkle Twinkle little Shield, keep me off the Battle field"...
there was Combat ... guy who got down dirty and shot...
Combat support... those who passed beans and Bullets and took the grunts into harms way...
Combat service support... those who fixed the Grunts and what the Grunts Broke and the machines the Combat support got AFU...
The only ones I remember as protected were the Folks in the Nose Bleed sections and the ones who Prayed ... "Twinkle Twinkle little Shield, keep me off the Battle field"...
(5)
(0)
4
4
0
4
4
0
If it means what it sounds like it means, it is detrimental to military effectiveness. I'm old school and we didn't have that concept in the military back then.
(4)
(0)
LTC (Join to see)
Capt Seid Waddell - the need for protected classes arose exactly because people were being discriminated against for things other than competence in the job at hand. The military discharged thousands of competent, productive soldiers for homosexuality. They denied competent soldiers from working in jobs they were fully qualified for but couldn't work in because they were women. And go back a little further, and you had fully competent men denied the opportunity to serve simply because of the color of their skin. So please don't refer to "old school" as the good old days where everyone was simply judged by merit and their own abilities. It was far from that.
(1)
(0)
Capt Seid Waddell
LTC (Join to see), I disagree. I believe the military was more effective before it became a liberals' social experiment.
(1)
(0)
2
2
0
Are you talking about medical, jag or other officers with training adso's that they won't chapter? People that refer to asap only once selected for a UA? Or are you talking about people that fall into a special categories like being transgender, where they are given a pass for political reasons? Define protected please.
(2)
(0)
1
1
0
There have been examples of protected demographics. I wouldn't say "class". For a long time at the Nurse promotion boards, they had a profile of the number of men who must be promoted. That related to the men only Fleet Marine Force billets at the time. So we'd see better qualified women get sent home in favor of lesser performing and capable men. I'd hope that is well in the past, but would need a current MIL to weigh in. I also noted that the Chaplain boards could be very emotional because it's hard to unload some denominational baggage. We also had a period where YG-76-77 got hammered in the Civil Engineer Corps. They brought in about 80 Line-Staff transfers with Surface Warfare badges. The board was heavily tilted to promoting those. So if you were 9-10 years active in the CEC, your first look promotion opportunity to O-4 was 13%. Next year it was 17%. By then all 80 pushbuttons were done.
I sat a number of boards. There wasn't a race, gender, etc. requirement, but there were draconian processes that dealt with it. There's been a female and minority requirement for some time as members of the board. I know a great lady who was also Hispanic. She was a frequent fixture in Millington as we killed two birds with one stone. In any case, I came into doing boards during the time of transition out of draconian. It used to be a separate process was utilized prior to the board reporting out that would directly compare the minority/woman/whatever record to the lowest record in the select group. The Board would have to generate a separate report on why the answer is the answer. During my time, that requirement was pared back greatly in that the Board membership would have a discussion of the demographics so the senior member could include in their brief up that there wasn't an inappropriate bias, etc. I'm dated so don't know how it's handled now.
That old process always disturbed me as I know a few minority officers who were passed over. They'd wonder why. I just couldn't bring myself to talk to them about that process that essentially said "What is it about Hell No don't you understand!" Interesting thing is they didn't care to stay in on the reserve side because they didn't want to go that direction for a number of reasons, most of them painful. I'm proud of the work we did on our Staff Boards. At least for us, we kept it very clean. That's why it would be so painful personally at times working so hard to stick the landing on the precepts. Don't get me going on precepts. They've morphed greatly over time as well.
I sat a number of boards. There wasn't a race, gender, etc. requirement, but there were draconian processes that dealt with it. There's been a female and minority requirement for some time as members of the board. I know a great lady who was also Hispanic. She was a frequent fixture in Millington as we killed two birds with one stone. In any case, I came into doing boards during the time of transition out of draconian. It used to be a separate process was utilized prior to the board reporting out that would directly compare the minority/woman/whatever record to the lowest record in the select group. The Board would have to generate a separate report on why the answer is the answer. During my time, that requirement was pared back greatly in that the Board membership would have a discussion of the demographics so the senior member could include in their brief up that there wasn't an inappropriate bias, etc. I'm dated so don't know how it's handled now.
That old process always disturbed me as I know a few minority officers who were passed over. They'd wonder why. I just couldn't bring myself to talk to them about that process that essentially said "What is it about Hell No don't you understand!" Interesting thing is they didn't care to stay in on the reserve side because they didn't want to go that direction for a number of reasons, most of them painful. I'm proud of the work we did on our Staff Boards. At least for us, we kept it very clean. That's why it would be so painful personally at times working so hard to stick the landing on the precepts. Don't get me going on precepts. They've morphed greatly over time as well.
(1)
(0)
1
1
0
Need more info, because form what i see of late anyone is on the chopping block. Officers being relived for bad Command Climate Surveys, and Senior Enlisted Leaders fired for enforcing old style discipline (Yelling at troops in public) so I would say protective class is Social Justice gone wrong.
(1)
(0)
0
0
0
I do, without a doubt. It allows factors other than performance and ability to be used to determine promotions.
NOTHING but performance should be considered at all for performance or awards.
NOTHING but performance should be considered at all for performance or awards.
(0)
(0)
SSG Roger Ayscue
Example...SFC Selection board is held back or recalled because the Army's EO Goals were not met for enough of this that or (Any one other than a white male)
(0)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google