Army’s New Initiative Promotes Diversity and Inclusion
By Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) / Deputy Chief of Staff G-1
Project Inclusion is the U.S. Army’s new initiative to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion across the force and build cohesive teams. As directed by the Secretary and the Chief of Staff of the Army, this holistic effort will listen to the Soldiers, Civilians and Family Members, and identify practices that inadvertently discriminate.
What are the current and past efforts of the Army?
The Army has enacted a range of initiatives to include training to elevate unconscious bias awareness and mitigate its impacts. The Army is taking substantive actions to ensure promotion and selection boards to be fair and impartial. Project Inclusion will include the following initial measures:
Updating its Diversity and Inclusion training across the Professional Military Education from the ranks of Private to the General Officers and Senior Executive Service Members
Suspending use of the DA photo from all promotion boards beginning August 2020
Redacting race, ethnicity, and gender data from both the Officer and Enlisted Record Briefs
The Army Equity and Inclusion Agency and the Office of the Inspector General will conduct listening sessions in the upcoming weeks visiting Soldiers and Army Civilians based worldwide to converse on race, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The Army will conduct an assessment of any possible racial disparity within the Military Justice cases and specifically focus on AWOL, urinalysis, sexual assault, and sexual harassment to determine whether or not there is a trend for bias.
What continued efforts does the Army have planned?
The Army has ongoing efforts nested within the Army People Strategy to improve diversity across the force and build cohesive teams. The Army will:
Finalize its Army People Strategy: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion annex – contains five Goals (Leader Commitment, Talent Management, Organizational Structure, Training and Education, and Equitable and Inclusive Environment)
Develop diversity initiatives that improve, identify, and eliminate institutional practices that inadvertently disadvantage any of its people on immutable characteristics that do not relate to the core mission
Be a national leader in providing equitable and inclusive opportunities and find ways to eliminate any subculture that threaten the Army Values.
Why is this important to the Army?
The strength of the Army comes from its diversity. Developing and maintaining qualified and demographically diverse leadership is critical for mission effectiveness and is essential to national security. The Army must foster a culture of trust and accept the experiences, culture, characteristics, and background each Soldier and Civilian brings to the institution. The Army must foster an equitable and inclusive environment that facilitates building diverse, adaptive, and cohesive teams that enable the Army to build and sustain readiness.