In August 2014, the US Merit and Protection Board released a report entitled “Veteran Hiring in the Civil Service: Practices and Perceptions.” The findings of the report confirms what most diversity and inclusion practitioners in the federal government are afraid to admit in fear of being struck down by the righteous defenders of God and country- bias exists in veterans preference hiring. Who were the biggest cheerleaders of these findings? Why the Godfather of all veterans preference hiring, our sacrosanct Department of Defense.
These same practitioners are quick to agree that affirmative action has seen its best days and Indian preference hiring has outlived its usefulness. Heavens forbid we touch a hiring program for the men and women of our country who put their lives on the line every day. Never mind that plenty of other public servants do the same yet do not enjoy the bounty of preference hiring like veterans. Some that come to mind are law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, teachers, correctional officers and the list goes on and on.
The report reminds us that any form of favoritism in federal hiring is a prohibited personnel practice and in this case, a higher cause of disengagement for the rest of us who are trying to play within the rules. Who can disagree that in these dark days of engagement levels across the entire federal government, do we really need any more institutionalized bias in the federal government?
Could one of the main drivers of veterans preference hiring be its ultimate demise-diversity? As a post-racial Generation of Millennials take over the federal government, will they be the eventual arbiters of veterans preference hiring? The generation that gave us Barack Obama as a President for two straight terms, the Occupy Wall Street movement and a constant reminder of weariness from a generation that has known nothing but war since 911.
As the jobs veterans do become more technologically advance in the form of drones and smart bombs, will there come a day when conflicts will be fought without the level of public sacrifice that defenders of veterans preference hiring depend on?
As military budgets decrease under sequestration and the weight of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about chokes in a toxic churn of special interests, will our country change its focus from the war on terror to the war on poverty. Will homeland security be defined not by how safe the country is but how less hungry its children are?
Wouldn’t that be a change of heart where social workers can enjoy preference hiring as they process food stamp applications for the very veterans we claim to want to so desperately hire.
