Reflections on The Military's Slow March Towards Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 10/30/2021
by Dan Alvey
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I began a new project recently analyzing criminal sentencing data as part of the Institute for the Quantitative Analysis of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (QSIDE) https://qsideinstitute.org/. It's a very exciting project, and I find myself hoping to make an impact for social justice and equity. This started me thinking about how I encountered instances of diversity, equity, and inclusion in my time in the Army. The events of the past year have brought DEI issues to the forefront of many people's minds, and I thought it would be worthwhile for me to reflect on how I encountered these issues while serving in the Army.
Through the course of my undergraduate career at West Point I learned how important having diversity in the ranks was, and how poorly our school had performed in the arch of history towards equality. Every year we would attend the Henry O. Flipper Dinner, which would honor a senior cade who had persevered through unusual adversity. Henry O. Flipper was a former slave and the first African-American cadet to graduate from West Point. He was brutally hazed, silenced (his classmates refused to speak to him) and once he was commissioned he led the buffalo soldiers with distinction before being court martialed and discharged based off of trumped up charges. At the time, having a dinner dedicated to Henry O. Flipper which focused on the issue of discrimination felt out of place. The other dinners we had would honor unusual bravery or a lifetime of great leadership. In retrospect I feel like West Point was a bit ahead of the zeitgeist by focusing on these issues before racial inequality and police violence became household topics of conversation across the country.
However, While Henry O. Flipper's horrible treatment in the late 1800s may have seemed like the dark past, the refusal to admit women into the Corps of Cadets until the 70s was recent history. It struck me as profoundly unjust that women had been discriminated against and denied the same opportunity I had been granted as late as the 1970s. The first women graduates of West Point graduated in the class of 1980. Some of them visited while I was a cadet and I remember thinking just how recent this past discrimination was. It felt absurd. I couldn't imagine not letting women study at West Point. This focus on Henry O. Flipper and celebration of the first women graduates all felt very much like the institution patting itself on the back.
Photo and other historical information from: https://history.army.mil/html/topics/afam/flipper.html
Even with women able to attend West Point, they were unable to serve in combat arms branches until very recently. One of my classmates was one of the first female graduates of Ranger School, and she wasn't able to branch infantry, her dream for years, until after she had already completed Ranger School. This was very frustrating to some leaders as well. When I was serving at Fort Benning in the Training and Doctrine Command, one of our very best instructors for the Bradley maintenance course was a female who desperately wanted to be serving as an armor non-commissioned officer. She wanted to be able to command the vehicles she had been maintaining for years. Our commander wanted her to as well, but despite his petitioning, the ban on women serving in combat arms was absolute at that time.
Needless to say, the celebration of Henry O. Flipper and the first women graduates at West Point seemed a little out of place, and honestly all felt very hypocritical as well with Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) still in effect. One of my best friends and roommates right after commissioning was homosexual, and despite how close we were at West Point and upon commissioning, I had no idea until after DADT was repealed who his true self was. It wasn't safe to tell anyone.
Even years after the repeal, acceptance came slower than it should have. One of the soldiers I led in Afghanistan was recently married to another man, and the command was a bit nervous about how some of the other soldiers and NCOs would respond to having an openly gay soldier serving with them on a deployment. I was nervous about my soldiers' reactions too. They were great people, and I'm still in touch with many of them a decade later, but a lot of them grew up in the South and came in with old prejudices. Many of them had never really met a gay person before. I was a fresh Second Lieutenant with very little experience in much of anything, let alone standing up for one of my soldiers in such a way. Luckily all our worries were for naught. Whether it was because of my soldier's openness, humor, and willingness to joke, or if it was because the other soldiers were more open to diversity than we expected, there were no issues at all and my soldier became one of the most popular and reliable soldiers in the whole troop.
My soldier was very fortunate to have a supportive unit welcoming him. Sadly, this was not a universal experience across the service. Many gay and lesbian soldiers experienced terrible treatment after DADT was repealed. Even today it's not uncommon to hear stories about Army chaplains making blatantly homophobic comments while blanketing themselves from consequence with an appeal to freedom of religion. And while the ban on transgender soldiers serving openly has been repealed this year, there is still a far way to go in making the Army and the U.S. Military as a whole more open and welcoming to all. The chain of command seems focused on these issues now more than they ever did when I was still serving, and I have hope that things will continue to get better.
This is not to say that the work is done, far from it. I don't know exactly what MathVets can do to further the cause of equity, but it's something I am actively thinking about. Progress towards equity isn't something that happens when we close our eyes and let time march forward, it's something that needs to be actively worked towards.
Dan Alvey served five years in the Army and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. He is now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
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