State Department Plans Ten-Day DEI Fest, Promoting ‘Psychological Safety at Work’

T he State Department is planning a massive DEI-focused event expected to involve more than a dozen federal agencies and up to 50,000 government employees, National Review has learned. The overarching goal is to mobilize department employees around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) principles and “psychological safety at work,” and it’s a “mission imperative,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NR in a statement.

Called the “10 Day DEIA Interagency Equity Pursuit Challenge,” the initiative will involve purely voluntary activities, during non-work hours, intended to educate federal-government employees about a range of topics. The program in November will conclude with a Jeopardy-style game that organizers hope will actively involve participants. Then, in December, there will be a “reflection rally.”

“Mental health and diversity equity inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) are closely connected,” reads an overview of the event posted on the State Department’s website. “Employees from diverse backgrounds can face a lack of representation, micro-aggressions, unconscious bias, and other stressors that impact their mental health and psychological safety at work.”

The launch of this event comes amid a highly visible push by the Biden administration to implement DEI principles throughout the federal bureaucracy. Over the past year and a half, the State Department has hired a chief “diversity and inclusion officer,” appointed a “special representative for racial equity and justice,” and mandated that U.S. diplomats “advance” DEI as part of the criteria for promotions. The department has also pledged to take further steps to “embed intersectional equity principles” in its communications.

A department spokesperson clarified to NR that the ten-day challenge was planned and initiated by State’s Bureau of Medical Service, and that the idea did not come from higher-ups or the new office of diversity and inclusion. The bureau ran a similar event last year, for the first time, and is bringing it back next month at a larger scale.

That said, it’s getting buy-in from senior officials, some of whom will brief department employees on equity-related matters during a lunchtime speakers’ series, the spokesperson said. Blinken also reiterated to NR his support for overhauling certain aspects of his department with an eye toward DEI:

I’ve been clear that fully addressing the Department’s shortcomings when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility isn’t something we’d be able to achieve overnight. But we’re facing them head-on and tackling this imperative with the urgency and priority it deserves — and with the resources to back it up. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s a mission imperative; we can’t serve the American people most effectively if our workforce isn’t reflective of our diverse country. I’m determined to do everything I can do to see to it that over time it is.

Despite Blinken’s stated commitment to these principles, State’s left flank is still criticizing the department for not acting swiftly enough. In a recent survey of Foggy Bottom employees, many complained of workplace bullying and harassment, the Wall Street Journal reported. A former Biden-administration appointee at State, Akunna Cook, told the Journal that the department needs to hire an outsider to fix things, since the “insiders don’t want to ruffle too many feathers.”

But while some accuse the State Department of moving too slowly, Republican members of Congress and watchdog groups point out that this new emphasis on “equity,” pursuant to orders handed down from the White House, is radical and liable to erode U.S. influence on the world stage.

Certain actions by State have earned scorn, such as a tweet promoting gender pronouns including the “ze/zir/zirs” favored by some activists, and the dubiously justified grants to foreign groups for drag performances and LGBTQ+ film festivals. During one high-profile exchange in July, Senator Marco Rubio grilled Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley over a grant to a Portuguese drag-queen film festival.

The upcoming ten-day DEI fest will include a brief daily “educational” experience for participants, involving videos and articles about “LGBTQ+ experiences,” “women and intersectional experiences,” “minority experiences,” and “persons with disabilities/ neurodiversity experiences.” At lunch throughout the start of November, a senior official will do a video-conference briefing on each of those four categories.

Last year, 13,000 of State’s 27,000 U.S. direct hires participated in the series, which lasted a month. The main difference this year is the scale — the spokesperson said that the final Jeopardy-style game will have capacity for 50,000 federal employees to tune in — and the involvement of other federal agencies, including USAID, the National Security Agency, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Commerce.