Coffin nails are a real problem and not easilly extracted once hammered in. It took me three looks to make O-5 because of an unintended slight perceived from a EP to P shift. The command had a huge influx of more senior O-4s and the CO didn’t want to bury them (she figured I was junior enough that a P wouldn’t hurt me, never taking into account how the down-check would look).

I, too, went to a position of “greater responsibility,” from that tour. I was passed over for O4 the first look, but mirabile dictu, picked up the second look. Despite outstanding FITREPs as an O4, and having spent my entire O4 time in operational jobs, I’m DIW for O5, and the apple polishers with no dings are getting selected. Meanwhile, the CAPTs have all retired and taken GS-15 or SES jobs (ain’t GWOT great!).

This is important, dammit. As the Navy shrinks, we should at least take the opportunity to have the best people we can in it, regardless of their appearance or genetic provenance. If doing that results in having un-representative proportions of different groups, that’s just too bad. Sucks, and all, but we’re talking existential National survival,here.

re: “In enlisted recruiting it be possible that many high-achieving minorities are availing themselves of other (i.e. educational) oportunities?”

I think that was what I was trying to get at, however inelegantly, here: Everyone wants to attract high-performing people of every ethnicity, and faced with top-tier competition the service might not be an employer of first resort. In other words, to meet ?

re: “In enlisted recruiting it be possible that many high-achieving minorities are availing themselves of other (i.e. educational) oportunities?”

I think that was what I was trying to get at, however inelegantly, here: Everyone wants to attract high-performing people of every ethnicity, and faced with top-tier competition the service might not be an employer of first resort. In other words, to meet “diversity” quotas with IBM and UCLA competing in the same talent pool might very well mean finding yourself competing for what’s left over, with an over-representation collecting in the lower quintiles.

While in NROTC I sometimes wondered at the relative paucity of minority Midshipmen and my completely unfounded theory is that the additional scholorship oportunities afforded high-achieving minorities may make the ROTC oportunity less attractive. In enlisted recruiting it be possible that many high-achieving minorities are availing themselves of other (i.e. educational) oportunities?

As for demographics, I seem to remember reading once that a higher percentage of minority recruits come from a significantly lower economic class than non-minority recruits. For many minority recruits the services are specifically seen (and often sold) as a ticket out of a bad economic situation. It just so happens that there is a significant correlation between poorer comunities and poorer education, regardless of race.