Well, yes. Take this, for example:
Because minorities are overrepresented in the enlisted ranks and underrepresented in the officer corps (compare Exhibits 3 & 4), the armed forces have focused recently on the officer “pipeline.” The services employ a number of tools:
Goals & Timetables: The Navy and the Marine Corps, historically less successful than the other services in this arena, have responded in recent months by setting explicit goals to increase minority representation in the officer corps. Both services seek to ensure that, in terms of race and ethnicity, the group of officers commissioned in the year 2000 roughly reflects the overall population: 12 percent African American, 12 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent Asian. Department of the Navy officials point out that this represents a significantly more aggressive goal than had been the case, when the focus for comparison had been on college graduates; the more aggressive goal implies vigorous outreach and other efforts (see below). Moreover, the Navy and the Marine Corps have set specific year-by-year targets for meeting the 12/12/5 goal.
Outreach, Recruiting, & Training: All of the services target outreach and recruiting activities through ROTC, the service academies, and other channels. Also, the services have made special, race-conscious (though not racially exclusive) efforts to recruit officer candidates. For example, the Army operates a very successful “preparatory school” for students nominated to West Point whose academic readiness is thought to be marginal; the enrollees are disproportionately but non exclusively minority.
Selection Procedures: All of the services emphasize racial and gender diversity in their promotion procedures. The Army, for example:
- instructs officer promotion boards to “be alert to the possibility of past personal or institutional discrimination—either intentional or inadvertent”;
- sets as a goal that promotion rates for each minority and gender group at least equal promotion rates for the overall eligible population; if, for example, a selection board has a general guideline that 44 percent of eligible lieutenant colonels be promoted to colonel, the flexible goal is that promotions of minorities and women be at that same rate;
- establishes a “second look” process under which the files for candidates from underrepresented groups who are not selected upon initial consideration are reconsidered with an eye toward identifying any past discrimination; and
- instructs members of a promotion board carefully so that the process does not force promotion boards to use quotas. Indeed, as Exhibits 5–7 illustrate, the minority and women promotion rates often diverge considerably from the goal.
(source)
Composing members:
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Composing members:
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