Institutional bias is a sensitive topic these days, especially when it’s about discrimination in an institution as beloved and respected by many as the military. There are actually some people who vehemently deny the existence of institutional bias in the military or any other institution. Typically, those who deny its existence are those who have never felt the sting of bigotry.
I served in the US Army from 1962 to 1982, and I’m here to tell you that despite the great strides made in the American military since President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 in 1948 declaring ‘that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin,’ the army I joined in 1962 was still riven with bias.
People of color were often the last promoted and the first to be subjected to military punishments, religious minorities such as Muslims or Conscientious Objectors were treated with disdain, and women were limited to only a few medical or clerical occupational specialties. Most of the senior officers and sergeants I encountered during the first five years I was in uniform had come out of the segregated army and, try as they might, some of them could not shake the biases that they had grown up with. On more than one occasion I was subjected to unfair treatment or untoward comments because of my race.
One would think this would go away with time, and overt displays did in fact fade, though they did not disappear. During my tours in Europe (1963-64 and 1965-66), Vietnam (1968-69 and 1972-73) and Korea (1973-76 and 1979-81) while units were fully integrated, off-base social life tended to be segregated. It was less rigid in the later years than during my early years, but still present. Even on base, and in the United States, military personnel often drifted socially toward those who looked like them. Not all, by any means, but a lot, which reflects the way the society at large often breaks down.
It was not just in the enlisted troops’ off-duty recreation that bias often appeared either. My daughter, who attended Georgetown University from 1993 to 1997 and was an ROTC cadet there, told me of encounters with midshipmen from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD who often trained and socialized with her ROTC unit talking about academy rituals, such as one where they climb a greased pole on the academy grounds.
Off-handedly, one of the middies, a young white from the south, talked about how it was highly competitive unless a minority or woman was about to reach the top of the pole and then the rest of the white cadets would join together to prevent it. This individual didn’t think this was anything unusual. Just the way things have always been done.
In May 2021, the Associated Press interviewed a number of current and former enlistees and officers of nearly every branch of the armed services, who described a deep-rooted culture of discrimination. Part of the problem is that despite its efforts to diversity and treat everyone equally and with dignity, the military does not have adequate mechanisms to deal with discrimination. The Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), for example, does not have a category of violation that addresses incidents based on discrimination, so many incidents either go unreported or get swept under the rug by command structures that are ill-equipped to deal with them.
The Defense Department also has no effective way to track the number of troops who have been discharged for overtly extremist views, so it really has no clue how many are in the ranks. During the January 6, siege on the US Capitol, for example, more than 20 of the instigators were found to have military ties, including some who were active-duty military.
The new Secretary of Defense has pledged to do something about the situation, but he has a high hill to climb. Part of the problem is the lack of diversity. While minorities make up over 40 percent of the enlisted ranks across the military, the officer corps is 73 percent white, 8 percent black and Hispanic, 6 percent Asian, 4 percent multiracial, and less than one percent Hawaiian, Native American, Pacific islander, or Alaska Native. The percentages worsen as individual climb higher in the ranks.
So, the next time you hear someone say that there is no such thing as institutional bias (and this includes racism as well as other forms of discrimination), give them these numbers and tell them to go back to school. – NWI
