The move comes amid a broader push to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into American statecraft.
The move comes amid a broader push to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into American statecraft.
S ecretary of State Antony Blinken will appoint the State Department’s first “special representative for racial equity and justice” on June 17, according to an email obtained by National Review. The move comes amid a broader push by the Biden administration to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into American statecraft.
The new special-representative role, whose creation Blinken first announced in a press release in April, will “lead the State Department’s efforts to advance the human rights of people belonging to marginalized racial and ethnic communities and combat systemic racism, discrimination, and xenophobia around the world,” according to the email. The Daily Caller first reported that Blinken would name his pick for the new post next week.
The State Department regularly addresses human-rights abuses targeting racial and religious minorities across the world, and it’s unclear what the new post, which will be housed within the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, will add to those efforts. In response to an inquiry that included a question along those lines, the department’s press office only directed NR to Blinken’s April statement and said it doesn’t have an announcement to make at this time.
The email did, however, detail a few of this post’s responsibilities, which include supporting bilateral diplomatic dialogues, public-outreach programs, assistance to U.S. diplomatic outposts and foreign governments, and speeches at summits. The representative will also advance fundamental freedoms for members of marginalized groups and promote “systems of inclusion that mitigate bias, discrimination, and violence from institutions designed to provide equitable and inclusive access to cultural, political, educational, health, social, economic, and financial services.”
Another part of the special representative’s mandate is to work toward “countering disinformation and societal violence aimed at those communities.”
The White House has advanced several initiatives to reshape the federal bureaucracy along diversity, equity, and inclusion standards over the past year. Several government departments, including the State Department, have appointed chief diversity and inclusion officers, and the president signed an executive order endorsing a “whole-of-government approach to” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility earlier this year.
In April, the State Department released an “equity action plan” intended to further the administration’s work on racial equity. The document explained that “addressing systemic racism and strengthening democracy worldwide is a core tenet” of Biden’s foreign policy.
It also detailed the State Department’s work with DEI professionals, disclosing that a program in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs “recruited 82 U.S. experts on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility to engage professional foreign audiences” on a range of topics.
The department’s equity-plan document also previewed a push to “promote equity through inclusive messages,” emphasizing “intersectional issues.” The plan states that that will include a focus on disinformation.
“The State Department will counter disinformation threats through PD programs that develop critical thinking and media literacy skills to empower individuals and networks to combat disinformation, including those harmful to inclusivity and racial equity, along with mitigating racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism.”
Previously, top Biden officials have criticized America’s history of racism while addressing international audiences, including during a campaign to join the scandal-plagued U.N. Human Rights Council. At an event last fall, U.N. ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that “systemic racism, regular targeting of the LGBTQIA+ community, and persistent discrimination against marginalized groups” continues in the U.S.
Blinken invited the U.N.’s special rapporteurs on racism and minority issues to visit the U.S. last July, citing a U.N. report on racism that was critical of U.S. policing practices. They have not yet taken him up on that offer.