U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan delivers remarks at the 142nd Commencement Exercises of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., on May 17, 2023. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Matt Thieme)
There is an official list of reasons why Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan was fired Tuesday on the first day of the Trump administration, and there is an unofficial list.
The official reasons cited by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman were “leadership deficiencies, operational failures, and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard,” including insufficient attention to Southern border drug issues and the handling of systemic sexual assault problems uncovered at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
Unofficially, however, too much attention to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues — as part of a “woke” culture that relates decision-making, including personnel hiring, retention, and promotion to social issues — was cited as prompting the ouster of Fagan, the first uniformed female to head a military branch.
Her firing was an insult to Fagan’s career and legacy and will have significant negative national security implications.
The Trump Administration has vowed to end “radical and wasteful” government DEI programs. “A woke military is a weak military” DEI critics like to say. Actually, however, a well-executed DEI program can address challenges being faced by the military. Those challenges are sometimes referred to as the “5 Rs”: recruitment, retention, readiness, resources, and risk to force/risk to mission.
The origins of that 5 Rs model offer insight. In 2019, Air Force Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mary O’Brien was working on the Women’s Initiate Team (WIT) to bringing down barriers to career development for women in the Air Force. As she explained in the forward to the 2024 Air Force publication, “One Team, One Fight:”
“It became obvious we needed to make the business case for policy change with some of our mid-level and senior leaders. This led to our ‘5R’ model — a rubric for evaluating each WIT proposal using Readiness, Resources, Risk, Retention, and Recruiting. Once senior leaders understood how these proposals were directly tied to our warfighting capability through quantifiable metrics for the five criteria, the criticisms of ‘diversity for diversity’s sake’ were negated, and the floodgates opened for a wide variety of changes.”
The military has and continues to face significant recruitment issues. Army Maj. Gen. Johnny Davis, commanding general of the Army Recruiting Command, described the 2023 recruiting landscape as “one of the toughest I’ve seen in over 33 years of service.”
Misunderstanding conflict
Lethality depends on a skilled workforce and there is no evidence that women are less skilled than men. In fact, sometimes just the opposite is the case. Future wars will likely be “information technology” heavy, thereby requiring not primarily brawn, but brains. Individuals with interests and capabilities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), intelligence, and linguistics, among others, will be needed to plan and execute strategy, thereby requiring less emphasis on combat jobs and more on high-tech.
In the 2015 class, 380 men began and 94 graduated. Nine women began and two graduated, the first women to graduate. That means that those two women did better than 286 men.
But if brawn is needed, women have shown themselves capable there as well. Traditionally, less than half of those who attempt the physically and mentally grueling Army Ranger course succeed. In the 2015 class, 380 men began and 94 graduated. Nine women began and two graduated, the first women to graduate. That means that those two women did better than 286 men.
While not all women are as physically strong as men, some clearly are. Tradition tells us that men are stronger than women, but that is a cultural stereotype. As of March 2022, 100 women had passed the Army Ranger course.
Recruitment and retention issues sometimes go hand in hand. A 2020 study by the Government Accountability Office, for example, found women are 28% more likely to leave the U.S. military after one or two tours than their male counterparts, which then requires resources to train new people, leaves gaps in experienced personnel, and subsequently gaps in military readiness.
Fagan was appointed commandant in June 2022. It’s worth noting that under her leadership, the Coast Guard met its recruitment goals last year for the first time since 2017.
In 2023, she apologized for the Coast Guard’s inaction in cases of sexual assault and harassment at the service’s academy between the late 1980s and 2006. While the internal report on the investigation, known as Operation Fouled Anchor, was kept under wraps by her predecessor, Fagan had the opportunity to release it and has been criticized by women within the Coast Guard for not yet doing so. She had said she was awaiting the completion of a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General investigation into the scandal.
Good-ol’-boyism
Without DEI, we are told, hiring and promotions will be merit-based. Make no mistake though, merit has traditionally been liberally peppered with cronyism and good-ol’-boy-ism. Now add to that fealty to the Trump administration rather than the Constitution.
The reality is that Fagan’s firing has nothing to do with bolstering national security. Just the opposite. It is part of a regressive social agenda to put women back in their place, misogyny being the glue that holds together the many racist, anti-immigration, LGBTQ+ and other hate groups that have been unleashed in America.
It is worth noting as well that it was President Donald Trump who signed the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Act in 2017, mandating the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) that recognizes the links between gender and security and therefore seeks to bolster women’s participation in security affairs. UNSCR 1325 is built upon four pillars: participation, prevention, protection, and relief and recovery efforts. WPS emphasizes the need for inclusive diversity (women having not just a seat, but a voice at decision-making tables) and consideration of how policies and programs affect men, women, boys, and girls differently.
The four U.S. executive departments charged with implementation of the 2017 Act are the Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Their designation clearly indicates the security-focused nature of the act. It is imperative to recognize as well that implementation of the WPS principles is intended as both domestic and foreign. To date, the United States has proudly been the only country in the world to have such a mandate.
Firing Fagan was likely just the first salvo in ridding the Pentagon, and the government generally, of individuals who support diversity. What’s the next chapter? The path forward is no longer visible, just like the Coast Guard web page that used to feature Fagan’s photo and biography.
DEI is a workforce tool and WPS is an operational tool to provide the United States strategic advantage in global affairs. Both require diversity. If DEI execution is broken, fix it. Don’t throw out a tool important to national security.
This story first appeared in the Rhode Island Current, a member with the Phoenix in the nonprofit States Newsroom.