Women and black employees at the Central Intelligence Agency: from fair employment to diversity management

Abstract

This article examines US intelligence through the lens of its personnel and the socio-political and organizational conditions that affect them. In the last decades, the CIA has sought to portray itself as an increasingly diverse organization. But to what extent has the CIA been a genuinely diverse and inclusive organization? When and why did its personnel policies change to improve the situation of marginalized employees? To answer this question the article uses an intersectional approach that combines three levels of analysis (structural, organizational and individual) to study the position of women and black employees from 1947 to today. The history of women and black employees at the CIA shows how the national security establishment has struggled to overcome gender and racial hierarchies in its own workforce, thus producing forms of insecurity in its own midst. Throughout its history, the CIA has largely failed to anticipate social change and struggled to adapt to it. Change, when it occurred, was linked to broader societal shifts, which spurred federal and organizational reforms, and empowered marginalized employees to defend their rights. When it comes to equal opportunity, the CIA has been more reactive than proactive.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Pauline Blistène, Stephen Coulthart, Peter Jackson, Mark McLay, Liam Mcvay, Kay Munro, Dan Scroop and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 60th annual convention of the International Studies Association in Toronto in 2019.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 A search for ‘“Central Intelligence Agency” AND discrimination’ conducted in January 2020 on the Westlaw US database reveals 20 unique employment discrimination cases brought against the Central Intelligence Agency in District Courts since 1990.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Damien Van Puyvelde

Damien Van Puyvelde is Reader in Intelligence and International Security and Director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies at the University of Glasgow. He chairs the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association. He is the author of Outsourcing US Intelligence (Edinburgh University Press 2019), and co-editor of Researching National Security Intelligence (Georgetown University Press 2019). Email: [email protected]