Does affirmative action still exist regarding promotions?

2019-01-14T18:14:24-05:00

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 14 at 2019 6:18 PM

2019-01-14T18:18:24-05:00

Dont know what you mean. Clarify.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 14 at 2019 7:01 PM

2019-01-14T19:01:09-05:00

http://www.ncosupport.com/files/FY17_MSG_Board_Stats.pdf

Numbers don’t lie.

FY17_MSG_Board_Stats.pdf

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Jan 14 at 2019 8:42 PM

2019-01-14T20:42:37-05:00

I'll give you some historical perspective on my board sitting experiences which I assume would apply to Army as the Services had the same DoD directives with some allowance for Service variation. I was sitting active/reserve officer promotion boards in the early 2000s and was a recorder prior to that. For sure, it was all merit based, but there were some draconian checks and balances which disappeared over time. If you read any of the precepts it'll say race, creed, religion, etc. is off limits. They were worried that some individual members could skew a result by purposely voting a lower level of confidence in The Tank. So, if you were say a minority who didn't make it past the 3rd crunch, then your record was put side by side on the main screens next to the lowest selected member's. We had to do a separate report on why the minority/woman, etc. wasn't selected. Over time that process went away and more reliance was put on analytics which would take a look at trends. We knew before our report was submitted how the racking, stacking, etc. of minorities, women, etc. worked out and if there was something triggered for additional review.

I remember recording for an O-4 board (my first) and watched that earlier process. Turns out, an exMil who failed to select to O-5 was now a coworker in my Navy unit as a civil servant. He had some bitterness obviously. I used the term draconian because my experience with the boards was straight up performance. What that process did to the minorities, women, etc. was to say "We said NO, now it's HELL NO!!" So the board didn't discriminate but like anything else, a prior Reporting Senior might with a FITREP, NCOER, or whatever showing a diminished result. My experience is there's many eyes and multiple record review people at the boards. Discrimination there is easily uncovered. We've had a couple Whiskey Tango Foxtrot questions directed towards a low confidence score with the opportunity for whoever to think/correct. Too visible. Turns out it's the prior knowledge bias that can creep in. We all had to fight that one off.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 15 at 2019 12:15 AM

2019-01-15T00:15:29-05:00

It's explained in the Army regulation on Affirmative Action. It mostly deals with reporting trends after boards.