Open letter to the DACODAI Chairman from STARRS President Col Ron Scott, PhD, USAF ret, USAFA ’73
General Lester L. Lyles (USAF, Ret.)
Chairman
Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (DACODAI)
4800 Mark Center Drive, Suite 06E22
Alexandria, VA 22350
Dear Chairman Lyles:
The purpose of this letter is to offer feedback on the CIA presentation at the May 3, 2024, DACODAI semi-annual meeting.
Let me offer some context before providing some feedback. In accordance with statutory requirements to allow public attendance and submissions to DACODAI, many members from the public registered to attend in person. After travel and lodging arrangements were already made, DACODAI issued an announcement that “due to unforeseen circumstances” the forum shifted to virtual only.
Perhaps the short-notice adjustment did not allow for a sufficient public forum—some registrants were unable to log-in, and some were dropped after logging in; for those, such as myself who were able to log in, we could only observe. There was no way to communicate—even the” chat” box was not available to ask questions or to make comments.
General, you also stated that a March 2024 report with nine recommendations to the SECDEF was available on the DACODAI website. As of the date of this letter, I still cannot find it. I further requested a copy of this report on May 4, 2024. I received no confirmation of my request, let alone a copy of the report.
While the focus of this letter is the CIA presentation, members of STARRS intend to provide feedback on others presented during the May 2 and 3 sessions.
The presentation title? The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) DEI Strategy by Dr. Jerry Laurienti, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, CIA.
What is the strategy as it relates to diversity and inclusion? Is diversity related to thought, skills, experience?
No. In this case, diversity means minority status—primarily race and gender. Inclusion means that the organization is expected to accommodate this push for diversity.
Evidence? Let’s look at what was actually said (bold, italics added for emphasis) [Note; the recording of this presentation is available here: https://rumble.com/v4t2y8r-dacodai-may-2024-public-meeting-session-3.html
[00:39:29.420] – Dr. Laurienti: Yeah, thank you. So, on the developing of leaders right now, we already have required training for leaders at different levels. So we have our first line, we have first line supervisor training. That’s required. We then
have training required to get to our G’s 15 roughly colonel level. And then we have training required to get to the senior intelligence service [SIS]. And in each of those required trainings, we have DEIA segments woven so that it is part of each piece of that leadership journey and that is required for everyone.
Already that that was instituted several years ago. On the accountability front, when you go into a promotion panel for leadership, and particularly for the senior leadership ranks, for our SIS, for our SIS ranks, those panels include our head of talent and then the head of each directorate and then myself. And the criteria for promotion are three, four. One is mission performance and everybody at CIA is very good at showing their mission performance. That’s long standing. No, no issues there. The second one is corporate give back and corporate mindset. And the third one is diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. And on that third one, they have to show not just that they have been contributing corporately, but rather the impact of their efforts on DEIA.
[00:41:20.860] – Dr. Laurenti: And so ahead of those panels, I remind every directorate that it’s an expectation that their officers are able to demonstrate first and foremost that they’re creating an equitable, inclusive environment within their teams for mission performance all day, every day. And I hold them to the bar that this isn’t additive. I do not want to hear that it’s something that they did after work or that they just do corporately. That I want to hear that it’s something that they’re doing all day, every day, so that each person in their unit is able to come to work focused on the job, not focused on trying to fit in. And I will tell you that as part of that process, I individually meet with every director at head and review their full roster of who they are putting up for promotion. And I tell them if I have issues with one of them or any of them, and I tell them if I think that there’s someone who’s been left off that they should consider. And in each instance, I can tell you in the last two years of panels, we’ve lifted people up and we’ve pushed people down based on those meetings.
[00:57:53.600] – General Lyles: Thank you, Doctor Laurenti. Well, this has been very, very interesting. Do you mind? Can you turn on your video so we can do a virtual face to face? Thank you.
[00:58:05.020] – Dr. Laurenti: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me turn it on for you. 1 second. And also, I’ll tell you, I’m going to turn on my video and going to tell you something I left out when I said a little bit about my position in 30 seconds here. I’m the first officer to hold this position who is in the majority demographic. I identify as a white, straight male. And why is that important for me to say that? It’s important because if the majority is on the sidelines and is complacent, it doesn’t work. And so when I say it’s for everybody and by everybody, that means that the majority has to be invested in it too. If it’s just underserved and underrepresented demographics, investing in this, once again, it’s math. It’s not going to work. So, I’m proud of who I am and I’m proud that I’ve taken that position with my identity at the forefront.
The above is just a small excerpt from the presentation, but it demonstrates the essence of the role diversity and inclusion staff play in perpetuating the ideological indoctrination.
The request by you, General, to turn on the CIA presenter video so that observers could see that the Chief Diversity Officer was a white male is reminiscent of the indoctrination that took place in the 20th Century as observed and instantiated by political philosopher F. A. Hayek in his seminal book, The Road to Serfdom:
“The most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends. It is essential that the people should come to regard them as their own ends. Although the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants. If the feeling of oppression in totalitarian countries is in general much less acute than most people in liberal countries imagine, this is because the totalitarian governments succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them to.” (Excerpt from the chapter titled “The End of Truth,” 1944, p. 171).
General, you emphasized that these presentations were “focused on a merit-based environment, with dignity and respect and opportunities for equal opportunity in a discrimination-free environment.”
Not once during the two-day session did I see evidence of merit as a factor for decision-making. To the contrary, the presentations justified deliberate discrimination to achieve DEI goals.
If the DEI strategy was such a logical and authentic solution for military readiness, then why do we have retention and recruiting issues?
Finally, the DEI praxis is under increasing scrutiny. For example, universities are walking away from it. See https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/may/20/dei-goes-on-defense-as-universities-shutter-divers/.
Yet, it appears internal adjustments within the Department of the Air Force are taking place to conceal the praxis. See https://x.com/jamesokeefeiii/status/1793416822395666873?s=12&t=n-ISzLxlwrG-cvYYsBnyiA.
If true, how is deception ever justified in preserving trust from the public?
In a previous letter in which I had the honor of being a co-signer:
“We hope the committee will, after considering our input, recommend policy changes that will reunify our armed forces and prioritize the defense mission to focus only on warfighting readiness: true equal opportunity (which requires acceptance of unequal outcomes while the whole of government focuses on the root causes of equal opportunity challenges), racial and ethnic neutrality, and exclusive use of merit in all personnel actions.”
Very respectfully,
Ronald J. Scott, Jr., Ph.D.
Colonel, USAF, Retired
President & CEO, STARRS
CC: Shirley Raguindin DFO for DACODAI
Leave a Comment