The Air Force’s anti-beard policy is actually damaging airmen’s careers

SSG Robert Mark Odom
"Big news today for the many airmen out there who want to grow out their beards: not only is there little evidence showing that beards interfere with a gas mask seal, but the Air Force’s ban on beards may also be contributing to racial discrimination and hurting promotion opportunities within the service.

That’s according to a new research paper published last week in the journal Military Medicine, which found that Air Force regulations against facial hair disproportionately affect Black or African American airmen and can lead to slower rates of promotion and limited job opportunities within the service.

The research studied the effect of shaving waivers on the careers of active duty male airmen. While the Air Force prohibits male members from growing beards, waivers are issued to airmen who, for medical and religious reasons, are not able to shave in line with regulations.

The new study found that airmen with shaving waivers faced significantly longer wait times for promotions and were often barred from sought-after jobs such as Honor Guard, recruiting, military training instructors, or the Thunderbirds demonstration team. While these issues affected airmen of all races who had shaving waivers equally, Black or African-American airmen made up the majority of the waiver holders and thus bore a disproportionate share of the consequences.

“[T]he promotion system is not necessarily inherently racially biased, but instead biased against the presence of facial hair which will likely always affect the promotions of Blacks/African-Americans disproportionately because of the relatively higher need for shaving waivers in this population,” wrote the authors of the study, a team of eight led by Air Force Lt. Col. Simon Ritchie."....

I would expect that to be one of the results.

The problem with a shaving profile is that there are more people that take advantage of it than those that need it.