With Big Promises Still Unfulfilled, State Department Diversity Chief Leaves Post

By Akbar Shahid Ahmed, HuffPost

President Joe Biden asked Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley to reform an agency known as “pale, male and Yale.” But diplomats say not much changed.

The State Department’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer, retired Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, is leaving her post, Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced on Tuesday.

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Abercrombie-Winstanley’s appointment in April 2021 attracted significant attention. The powerful agency has long been dominated by a “pale, male and Yale” ethos that excluded historically marginalized individuals, like women and people of color, and tolerated workplace harassment and discrimination with few options for holding abusers accountable. President Joe Biden and Blinken repeatedly promised to prioritize diversity work, with Blinken telling Congress he saw the issue as a barometer by which to measure his success as secretary.

But change has been slow and procedures for reporting mistreatment remain byzantine and lacking, multiple current and former State Department officials told HuffPost earlier this year. In one instance, a Biden nominee for a senior State Department job is facing a sexual harassment accusation that congressional staff believes the department has failed to properly investigate ― yet HuffPost found the State Department had no plan to address their concerns.

Reacting to the news of Abercrombie-Winstanley’s departure, a U.S. official said her appointment ultimately ended up being “a box-checking exercise.”

Read more about the government’s failure to make diversity and inclusion a priority in the original article.

Learn why, historically, steps toward inclusion have always felt like one forward, two back in this virtual exhibit.

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