Halibut Hangar

Originally Published March 15, 2009; Last Updated July 23, 2010; Last Republished July 23, 2010:

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Gary Roughhead recently (audio) touted the Navy's diversity policy and initiative—so what's the diversity on our 73 or so submarines1.

Easy question to ask—a bit more difficult to answer—fleet data are not available in the Navy's public Quarterly Series, Navy-Wide Demographic Data—a separate document or series could not be found for Navy demographics by fleet (ships, submarines etc.).

So we'll punt until better demographic data can be obtained for our submarine fleet. First, we can eliminate women⁸, because even though they make up 15.22% of the total active duty Navy they are not permitted to serve as submarine line officers² or fill enlisted submarine billets⁵.

Active duty submarine warfare and special warfare unrestricted line officers are 89.2% White and 10.8% Non-White³. Non-White males make up 17% of the total active duty Navy officers—to no submariner's surprise Non-Whites are under represented on submarines.

But officers account for only a small portion of those serving on submarines—what to do about the enlisted? For this a "Hell Hail Mary Pass" is required! It turns out that a study⁴ of submariner's health complaints was conducted over 240 patrols. The study categorized the data by officer/enlisted (enlisted complained more) and White/Non-White—a pretty good proxy for a "Hell Hail Mary Pass".

Over the approximately three year period and 240 patrols the enlisted crews were composed of 88.1% Whites and 10.4% Non-Whites (1.6% unknown). Officer crews were 92.2% White and 5.7% Non-White (2.1% unknown).

The good news is the CNO has a diversity initiative—the bad news is he's around the 50-60 yard line for Non-White submarine diversity and not even on the field for submarine gender diversity.

Hopefully, the Navy Personnel Command will include a cut of their great Navy-Wide Demographics Data by submarine fleet and officer/enlisted, as a minimum.

Pod:

• UPDATED 07/20/2009 NavyMil, Chief of Naval Personnel on Navy Diversity Efforts (3M mp3). CNP, Vice Admiral Mark Ferguson responds to some "soft questions" on the Navy's increasing and encouraging efforts to build-up our Navy's leadership diversity.

  What about our submarine fleet and submarine commands admiral?

Blog:

• UPDATED 05/23/2009 Reuters, President Address the Naval Academy Graduating Class of 2009. The class of 2009 graduated 84.9% (1036/1220).

  Based on the class of 2009 incoming profile the graduating class demographics are: Women(200); Blacks(58); Hispanic(97); Asian(34); Native American(24); Hawaiian(16). (Red = under represented compared to active duty fleet totals)

Web:

• UPDATED 07/23/2010 WP, Navy women reach new heights.

  The Navy's recent and speedy embrace (some might say bear hug) of our talented women has been nothing short of breathtaking—kudos to the CNO et al.

• UPDATED 11/20/2009 Baltimore Sun, AP IMPACT: As military academies seek diversity, urban lawmakers often make fewest nominations.

  "The freshman class of 1,230 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., includes 435 students who are black, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American or part of another minority group. That is about 35 percent, up from 28 percent the year before."--AP--

  Some of our congressional leadership may be a bottleneck in efforts to diversify our military leadership⁷.

  More investigation and follow-up reporting is required on this important and interesting report by the Associated Press (e.g. how many academy requests do minority constituents submit to minority district representatives; what are the details of the depositions of these requests; are JROTC peer and military representatives “sponsoring” submittals to minority district congressional representatives; are there military liaisons with minority district representatives’ offices; are minority district representatives actively interfering or passively neglecting or encouraging or discouraging minority constituents expressing an interest in an academy opportunity; et cetera).

• UPDATED 07/22/2009 Stars and Stripe, Breaking into the underwater boys’ club: Sailor one of 12 women to be submarine-qualified.

  How delightful to read Lieutenant Commander Marilisa Elrod speaking up for women on submarines—a dearth of qualified hyperbaric MDs (Elrod's specialty⁶), should not be a prerequisite for providing our women an opportunity to be submariners.

  With all due respect to Lieutenant Commander Greg Kuntz one of the biggest impediments has been the Navy's perpetual rhetorical question "how can we make this work".

  In addition to running submarine summer camp for our female cadets let's start assigning them to our submarines. They'll let you know how to make it work—make it work better.

• UPDATED 07/10/2009 USW, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Global Competitiveness Conference Recognizes Submariners. Nine U.S. Navy submariners receive black engineer of the year awards—four for SSNs; five for SSBNs.

  "I’m extraordinarily proud of everything these men have achieved for themselves and the Submarine Force,...They are inspiring and empowering our Sailors to realize their full potential and to recognize the value that each individual brings to the Force." --Vice Admiral John J. Donnelly, Commander, Submarine Force--

• UPDATED 07/03/2009 UPI, Naval Academy admits most diverse class.

  Closing any academic remedial gaps that may exist among the diverse class of cadets is a joint mission of high priority to be accomplished by the cadets, Academy, Navy, and our nation.

  Under no circumstances must these gaps be viewed as a reason or justification for lowering the Academy's commitment to achieve diversity, maintain its high graduating standards, and its tradition of delivering highly competent Naval officers to our fleet in the service of our nation.

• UPDATED 06/10/2009 NavyMil, Naval Academy Increasingly Diverse.

  The article touts the diversity of the incoming class of 2013 and the outgoing class 2009 graduation rate. Curiously, the article misses the opportunity to tell us about the diversity of the outgoing class of 2009?

• 5/16/2009 CNO testifies before House Armed Services Subcommittee on May 14, 2009.

  "We have had great success in increasing our diversity outreach and improving diversity accessions in our ranks. We are committed to a Navy that reflects the diversity of the nation in all specialties and ranks by 2037. Through our outreach efforts, we have observed an increase in NROTC applications and have increased diverse NROTC scholarship offers by 28 percent. The NROTC class of 2012 is the most diverse class in history and, with your help through nominations, the U.S. Naval Academy class of 2012 is the Academy’s most diverse class in history. Our Navy is engaging diversity affinity groups such as the National Society of Black Engineers, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Mexican American Engineering Society, and the Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund to increase awareness of the opportunities for service in the Navy. Our engagement includes Flag attendance, junior officer participation, recruiting assets such as the Blue Angels, direct Fleet interaction. We have also established Regional Outreach Coordinators in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami to build Navy awareness in diverse markets.

  As we continue to meet the challenges of a new generation, the Navy is already being recognized for our efforts through receipt of the Work Life Legacy Award (Families and Work Institute), the Work Life Excellence Award (Working Mother Media), Most Admired Employer (U.S. Black Engineer and Hispanic Engineer Magazine), and Best Diversity Company (Diversity/Careers in Engineering and IT)."--CNO Admiral Gary Roughead, May 14, 2009--

  Kudos to the Navy and CNO on their outreach efforts—no easy task to meet recruiting goals while ensuring fleet and command diversity.

• CNO Releases Diversity Podcast
• Navy Personnel Command Diversity

-----notes-----

1. United States submarine force structure as of September 2008 is 55 SSN: 28 ComSubLant; 27 ComSubPac; AND 14 SSBN: 6 ComSubLant, 8 ComSubPac AND 4 SSGN: 2 ComSubLant; 2 ComSubPac.

The current SSN ratio of Atlantic to Pacific may change as submarines are moved to the Pacific, Los Angles-class submarines are decommissioned, and Virginia-class submarines are commissioned.

2. Submarine Warfare group designators 112x/117x and submarine special warfare group designators 113x/118x are currently restricted inaccessible to women.

Navy wide active duty flag officer (one to five star admirals) women represent 6.8%—one of the flag officer women is black—well under represented in the Navy leadership hierarchy.

UPDATED 08/13/2009 Here is Vanity Fair quoting our new Secretary of Navy, Ray Mabus on why women are not allowed to serve their country on submarines.

His meaningless "weasel worded" response you might cause you to think he was asked why the Virginia-class submarine overran its initial price tag by $2 billion dollars!):

Q: Women aren’t allowed on submarines, but I’ve heard conflicting reasons why. Are the rumors true—that it’s so they won’t get pregnant? [Pregnant women aren’t allowed in combat.]

A: I’ll be absolutely truthful—I know submarines are the one place where women don’t serve, but after this conversation I’ll find out why.

Mabus’s secretary followed up with the official response: “The policy of not assigning women to submarines remains unchanged today because of the platform’s very unique space limitations, equipment density, design constraints and extended mission requirements. The policy is reviewed periodically—while there is no formal study per se, it is something we're taking a look at.”

It's time to stop "looking at it" and start assigning women to serve aboard our submarines.

3. An officer may possess a designator of "unrestricted line officer" in submarine warfare or submarine special warfare and not serve on submarines. Stated differently just because an officer is qualified to serve and command submarines does not mean he does.

At the active duty flag officer level (one to five star admirals) Whites are 94.4% and Non-Whites 5.6%. Blacks represent 4.7% at this leadership level while representing 18.8% of the total active Navy.

The first black four star admiral, J Paul Reason (Ret.), was appoint in 1996.

4. Terry L. Thomas et al., "Health of U.S. Navy Submarine Crew During Periods of Isolation". Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 74, No. 3, March 2003

As an aside on average submariners were 89% non-smokers, probably a higher percentage today?

5. UPDATED 03/16/2009 It is difficult to imagine what job a woman could not do well on our modern submarines. Women are masters of patient strategic thinking and would out perform their male peers in many submarine job classifications.

If a respected woman war attack officer (aka OOD) said come right to course xxx prepare to fire torpedoes the only reply from crew members would be "come right to course xxx, prepare to fire torpedoes, aye"—steering course xxx, prepared to fire torpedoes". If she is not respected she will be immediately transferred from the submarine and perhaps the Navy.

The discussions beginning around 1994 about space, privacy, "hotbunking" etc. are mostly red herrings. If the challenges (and there are many) of submarines appeal to a woman she should be welcomed, mentored, and treated just like any other submariner.

Yes, some submariners periodically "hotbunk" for certain missions or while conducting some testing—the overwhelming number of submariners never "hotbunk". The number of women volunteering for submarine duty will likely be so small this would never be an issue.

Those applying the paternalistic logic of protecting women from some ribald submariners need to update their logic—some women can be and are just as ribald as their counter-part. Yes, some women may implement their personal female sensibilities (e.g. dart or tailor their "poopy suit"), but how does this harm or impact mission readiness or performance. Some women could care less and are just as comfortable crawling around bilges as their male counter-part (on submarines appearance is rarely, if ever confused with respect for capability and talent).

Submarine privacy comes from others focusing on their job and personal hobbies when not performing their job, standing watch, or sleeping. The idea that submariners (officer or enlisted) will uncontrollably seek to join the "mile low club" is ridicules. Submariners are some of the most talented and disciplined (and yes ribald) naval personnel. Yes, their will be on board and off board sexual incidents, but these can be routinely dealt with as any other disciplinary matter.

6. On submarines this specialty works in conjunction with the master diver, divers, dive teams, and the commanding officer, in extraordinarily complex environments, to ensure these "macho men" (not to mention intrepid) are kept safe, healthy, and alive.

Guarantee, they don't give a rat’s ass that she's female; only that she's competent and can keep them safe, healthy, and alive to dive another day.

7. Kudos to Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who nominated 128 students over the past five years from his Baltimore district, which is 64 percent black.

A representative can nominate 10 candidates for five seats per academy per year. So, Representative Cummings has a respectable 85 percent nomination rate, notwithstanding his membership in the Out of Iraq Caucus.

8. Subsequent to this post our Navy has permitted women to serve our nation as submariners. Nineteen women officers are currently in training and are expect to serve aboard Ohio-class submarines (SSBN and SSGN; ballistic missile and cruise missile, respectively), not later than 2012.