Black service members are put on trial more than whites, and Congress declared Tuesday that it wants an end to the racial disparity in the military justice system.
“Consistent, persistent and getting worse, and then you do nothing about it,” fired Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, at Air Force Judge Advocate General Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Rockwell during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, quoting one of the Air Force’s own 2017 findings of racial prejudice.
The problem in the Air Force, which last week named Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as its first African American service chief, is most bleak. One report found that African Americans are 71% more likely to face court-martial than whites.
“We don’t have clear answers or underlying reasons as to why the disparity exists,” said Rockwell in his opening statement, noting the Air Force Inspector General is conducting a study of the issue.
Rockwell also called the disparities “a daunting problem” and acknowledged racial disparities in court-martials and nonjudicial punishment, or Article 15 minor offenses.
A study by the independent Protect Our Defenders reviewed 10 years of data and also found that blacks in the Army were 61% more likely to face court-martial than whites, in the Navy 40% more likely and in the Marine Corps 32% more likely.
In the first of two panels, the Government Accountability Office briefed a May 2019 study that found racial prejudice in the justice system across all services in data analyzed between 2013 and 2017.
But the Protect Our Defenders study was most damning.
Former Air Force prosecutor, retired Col. Don Christiansen took the Air Force to court and waited three years to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request to get the group the data to prove bias.
“This is information that we know the Air Force has tracked for decades, back to at least the ’80s, and nothing was ever done, so there’s a long track record of doing nothing,” Christiansen said in testimony.
Christiansen was critical of the military system whereby the commander decides when a service member will be court-martialed.
“There’s an inherent bias in the chain of command when they know the people involved, and they haven’t established the same kind of relationships with African Americans,” he explained.
GAO figures found blacks were no more likely to be found guilty than whites across the services.
All the services pledged to abide by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act requirement known as Section 540 I to provide demographic data to Congress to measure progress.
Rooting out bias
Services already undergo training to prevent unconscious bias, but service representatives pledged more diversity recruiting, training, mentorship, and rooting out racial discrimination once data is studied and the reasons are identified.
“Are we mentoring everybody the same?” posed Rockwell. “We all feel that we probably aren’t based on those biases, but we don’t have the specific data to show that.”
Ranking member Trent Kelly, a 33-year military veteran who recalled seeing African American leadership in his Mississippi National Guard units, went easier on the service chiefs and called Christiansen’s accusations of bias by commanders “a very dangerous assumption.”
Instead, the Mississippi Republican zeroed in on the E-5 and below class most affected and encouraged services to determine how to get minorities on the fast track for promotion.
“What are we doing to get African American kids into those branches where we know promotions happen?” he posed.
Rep. Anthony Brown, a black, 25-year military veteran and former Army aviator and JAG officer, listed the stark numbers for black airmen.
“An institution that benefited from the courageous service of nearly 1,000 pilots during World War II who completed the Tuskegee training program, yet today there are only 446 minority fighter or bomber pilots and navigators in the armed forces,” said the Maryland Democrat, noting that less than 2% of pilots are African American.
Brown pointed out that of the 61 four-star flag officers, only two are African American.
“That is where we are today in our nation and in our military, and that cannot be where we are tomorrow,” he said.
