Obama directs security agencies to diversify their hiring

President Obama is telling the nation’s security agencies to hire more minorities.

“Our greatest asset in protecting the homeland and advancing our interests abroad is the talent and diversity of our national security workforce,” he said in a presidential memorandum released Wednesday.

“As the United States becomes more diverse and the challenges we face more complex, we must continue to invest in policies to recruit, retain and develop the best and brightest from all segments of our population.”

{mosads}National security adviser Susan Rice will argue the U.S. national security workforce “has not yet fully drawn” on the strength of America’s diversity in a blog post set to accompany Obama’s memorandum.

“Minorities make up less than 20 percent of our senior diplomats and 15 percent of senior military officers and senior intelligence officials,” the post will say, according to Politico.

“Nearly 40 percent of the approximately 320 million people in the U.S. are minorities. The leadership of men and women who may not share similar backgrounds lends much needed diversity of thought and creativity to our responses to some of the world’s toughest problems.”

A White House fact sheet states that some 3 million civilians and military personnel within the U.S. government work in national security, including intelligence.

The fact sheet notes the Obama administration broadly defines diversity so that it includes individuals with various ethnic, religious or sexual backgrounds.

“Diversity has always been one of the nation’s greatest strengths, and it is no different for the federal workforce, which has a responsibility as the nation’s largest employer to lead by example and to reflect the population that we serve,” it says.

“Inclusion has been key to ensuring that the investments we make to develop our workforce result in a more effective and skilled government for the American people.”

President Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, has sought to make diversity a hallmark of his two terms in office.

The Defense Department, for example, opened all military occupations to transgender people and women under Obama’s watch.