Originally Posted by
symbian simian
Well, maybe I didn't read as carefully as I should. For starters, IMO requiring a minority is wrong. If there isn't a qualified minority then we will have no minority until one is qualified. But if only 20% of the board is minority it really wouldn't change the outcome that often. And I will admit that for leadership in the armed forces I would probably lean more towards the best vs the good enough.
In my experience I relayed, the only "required women and minority" was a qualified senior person of that ilk to be on each selection board. That had been a policy for at least the 90's forward. Consequently, if you had a senior level officer or enlisted member in your command of that ilk, they were often asked to be a part of the selection board process whereas most officers/enlisted would go their whole career without sitting as a member of a selection board. This actually led to many of these individuals being very familiar with the selection board process and able to pass that knowledge back to their squadon/shipmates. Otherwise, Navy selection boards were often seen as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.