Addressing Diversity, Army Will Remove Photos of Officer Candidates in Promotion Reviews

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/politics/army-pentagon-race-promotions.html

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WASHINGTON — The Army will remove photographs of candidates in promotion board hearings, senior officials said on Thursday, as part of an effort to address why so many black officers are being passed over in favor of their white counterparts.

The move is part of an accounting on race that is underway at the Pentagon, as the Defense Department leadership grapples with the larger movement for change that has swept the country since George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, died in police custody.

People of color account for 43 percent of the active-duty military, but the top ranks are largely white and male.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy announced the change during a news conference on Thursday. ​The events over the last month have been “an extraordinary time,” Mr. McCarthy said. He pledged that the Army would examine unconscious bias and other issues that hinder minority service members from advancing.

Promotion records will still identify the race of candidates, Army officials said. But they said recent studies show that when photos are removed, outcomes for women and minorities improve.

The removal of photos by the military’s largest service is a tacit acknowledgment of how much race still plays a part in decisions about who should advance. The move comes a week after Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper announced that the Pentagon would look into how to increase the percentage of minority service members in its predominantly white officer corps.

In a video message to the Defense Department last week, Mr. Esper said that he was creating a board that would have six months to “develop concrete, actionable recommendations to increase racial diversity and ensure equal opportunity across all ranks — especially in the officer corps.”

But the Pentagon is taking these steps at the risk of alienating President Trump, who has made clear his disdain for efforts to address the concerns of African-American service members.

In the weeks since Mr. Floyd was killed and protests spread across the country, a handful of senior officers and Defense Department officials have sought to confront the military’s own past on race.

But in a high-profile rebuke two weeks ago, Mr. Trump publicly slapped down the Pentagon for considering renaming Army bases named after Confederate officers. The White House even said the president would go so far as to refuse to sign the annual military authorization bill if Congress tried to force his hand.

Mr. Trump’s announcement, delivered via Twitter, infuriated many senior military leaders, who have struggled for ways to talk to a diverse active-duty force about racial disparities in promotions and assignments.