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All Army-level boards are given minority "goals" for promotions, commands, school selections, etc.
Boards are given X-number of eligible packets containing individual personal and performance data. They are told to review and score each packet. The results are tabulated, and the candidates are assigned the aggregate score of the board members' votes. The board may or may not know that only Y number of packets will be selected. There may be as few as 100 selected out of 2000 packets. In that case, the top 100 scores will be selected. #101-2000 will not.
There will usually be a Bell Curve of distribution, with a top 10% or so standing out and another 10% or so who are clearly not qualified. The other 80% will be in the middle, with the middle third seperated by hundredths or thousandths of a point. You might have 100 packets essentially tied. This is fine when you have 90% of the packets to select. It is not when you have 20%to pick. This has lead the Army to define candidates as unqualified, qualified, and "best qualified". The bottom 10% become the unqualified (or less than qualified), the middle group becomes the qualified, and those selected become the "best qualified".
If the board fails to select the appropriate number of minorities (to include females), instead of being released, they are required to remain convened and are directed to review all of the minority packets for evidence of "discrimination" in every packet. If any packet contains anything that could be considered "discriminatory", they are permitted to revote the file. "Discriminatory" has in the past been as selective as a female officer deciding to have her photo taken in a skirt, with a large tattoo visible on her calf, which the board determined may have caused them to have a lesser opinion of her. Note that it was her choice to wear a skirt, rather than trousers, and she chose to not apply makeup or a bandage to the tattoo, or have the photo retouched. There are many such examples. The board revoted her, and she was assigned a new score, which put her above the cut line.
This might be marginally fair, except for one glaring fact. The person who was #100 and was acceptable, is now non-selected, and their file is not revoted, unless they are a minority who might have been discriminated against as well. They are simply "bumped". There is no head to head comparison of those newly selected with those being bumped.
Boards do not normally make their "goals", even after revoting.
IMHO, if the system were going to be fair, all pictures, sex, race, and ethnic data would be removed, along with all names, and files would be assigned an identifying number. No revoting would be permitted. If there were a reason to revote, it would only be to add personnel and all personnel being selected previously would remain on the list.
There is also a Post-Board Screen for certain selections that we do not need to cover.
HTH, Bill.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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