Rep. Cisneros Calls for Greater Diversity in Armed Forces

Statement

Today, Representative Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr. (CA-39) heard testimony from Military Service Personnel Chiefs on the recruiting, retention, and other internal personnel policies the Military Services have in place to increase the diversity of the armed forces. He pressed the witnesses on their efforts to invest not only in the recruitment of women and people of color at the beginning of their careers, but also in the retention of more women and people of color as they continue their military service and advance in rank. Additionally, Rep. Cisneros asked what the Military Services are doing to encourage more women and people of color to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses and careers.

Rep. Cisneros related his own Navy Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) experience and the importance of STEM degrees in the armed forces. Specifically, Rep. Cisneros said, "I did Navy ROTC and I was also a political science major, but I recently went back and I looked at the requirements, and I would not have been able to get that ROTC scholarship. It's pretty much all STEM careers or STEM majors, as far as what they're looking for today. And when you look at the people that are studying STEM in college, it's not women, it's not people of color… Are there any programs that any of the [Military] Services are running to reach down into the middle schools, the high schools, to partner with them, to get people of color, to get women involved in STEM and help groom them into becoming those future military officers?"

Rep. Cisneros is a Navy veteran and co-led a bicameral letter to the Chairpersons and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees urging them to promote diversity and inclusion within the Department of Defense (DoD). At his urging, Rep. Cisneros helped secure language in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to: direct DoD update its 5-year Strategic Plan on Diversity and Inclusion; maintain a $50M funding level for the Minority Serving Institution program; and issue a report on the number of minorities and women in the workforce, the effectiveness of incentives, and a plan for increasing their participation.

Source