Senior Air Force leaders announced 13 new diversity and inclusion initiatives in a memorandum released to airmen Friday. The memo—signed by Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein, and CMSAF James Cody—announces new diversity requirements for certain promotion candidate pools, membership on command selection boards, and nominations for recruiter duty. The Air Force will also create a new human capital analytics office, which will use “microtargeting capabilities to better attract and retain talent” as well as “discern retention trends and their root causes.” Additionally, Air Force ROTC will receive $14 million over five years to fund 200 new scholarships for ROTC candidates from “underserved and underrepresented” population centers. The memo also identified service career fields that have “historically” lacked diversity, including piloting, air battle management, combat systems operations, space and missile operations, cyber operations, and intelligence operations. Leaders in these fields will need to submit plans to reverse that trend. Other initiatives aim to provide more flexibility for families. Female airmen will be given 12 months after the birth of a child to decide whether to separate from the force. Beginning in the next assignment cycle, the commander of the Air Force Personnel Center will need to approve assignments that involuntarily separate dual military families. Further details on the programs and their implementation will be released by Oct. ?15.
The Air Force ramped up operations and maintenance spending to keep its F-35A fighters flying over the past six years, but readiness continues to lag behind goals, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.