In the Navy's enthusiasm to achieve the objectives of equal opportunity, discrimination has been, and continues to be, practiced in the assignment of equal opportunity (EO)/race relations (RR) billets.
"Due to the small numbers of minority officers and the Navy's desire to expeditiously establish the equal opportunity and race relations program, young minority officers were either detached early from their first sea tour or assigned to EO/RR billets immediately after entering the Navy. There are many apprehensions among these officers that these assignments are not career enhancing since they were not able to obtain a warfare specialty prior to going ashore. Such is not the case. First of all, if the officers involved perform well in their EO/RR tour, they will be provided the opportunity for requesting sea duty or flight training if qualified, at the end of their tour, in order to gain a warfare specialty. Secondly, EO/RR tours are considered qualifying tours for entry into the Human Resource Management (HRM) subspecialty community. With the experience gained from the EO/RR tour, officers on subsequent shore tours can expect follow-on assignments in such areas as Organizational Development, Intercultural Relations, Race Relations, Drug and Alcohol Abuse Education or Drug and Alcohol Abuse Control . . . .
For those officers presently in EO/RR assignments, if you were short-toured before you could obtain a warfare specialty, you will be given an opportunity to return to sea at the end of this tour to complete your qualifications. Additionally, your present tour is giving you valuable experience for entry into the Human Resource Management subspecialty community. . . ."[1]
I question the policy of limiting the options open to officers in the Navy based on the fact that they are, or are not, minority officers. The negative aspects of the policy described in the article quoted here are numerous, despite the disclaimer that all's well.
Why do minority officers have to be employed in EO/RR assignments to establish the equal opportunity and race relations program? In one stroke this policy:
► Severely limits the opportunity of minority officers to compete and achieve qualifications in warfare specialties—the established chain of advancement to positions of real responsibility in the military.
► Limits the opportunity to nonminority officers to compete and achieve qualifications in the Human Resource Management subspecialty community.
The minority officer, functioning under such a program as we have now, is placed at an immediate disadvantage when compared with officers of his year-group not removed from their desired warfare specialty. Apprehensions among minority officers going to EO/RR assignments are well founded because:
► When they finally get around to qualifying for warfare specialties, they are a couple of years behind their contemporaries.
► Due to their tours in HRMs they can "expect" follow-on assignments in the HRM field, a field they may not have been interested in from the start.
► Once serving a second tour in the HRM field, they have almost locked themselves into this area and out of other fields.
With more minority officers being pushed into the HRM field, it would seem to follow that fewer minorities end up in other specialty fields, which was the original aim of the equal opportunity program.
So what is happening? The Navy has created unequal opportunity under the guise of "equal opportunity." Minority officers' career patterns are restricted in the Navy and hence discrimination is perpetrated rather than eliminated. To the casual observer it might even seem as though the HRM assignments were created to provide jobs for minority officers rather than to facilitate the integration of all Navy officers into established positions of responsibility and authority. Wouldn't it be unfortunate if, due to this sort of policy, minority officers decide that their opportunities in the Navy are limited and hence leave the service rather than making it a career?
The answer to the dilemma seems obvious. All requirements that exist for assignment of officers by race, be it HRM assignments or any other assignments, should be canceled. The results of such a bold move may well come closer to achieving the goals of equal opportunity and eliminate the need for so many people to be assigned to race relations jobs in the future.
[1] NavPers-15892 Officer Personnel Newsletter, Volume 19, Number 3, Winter 1975 (reprinted in part).