Your Letters

Letters to the Editor

Letters may be edited for accuracy, space, clarity, and civility. No personal attacks please. Please keep letters related to articles or letters from previous Bulletin issues. Occasionally, letters will be printed if the subject material relates to either the Academy or Alumni affairs. The Alumni Association reserves the right to publish or omit submissions at its discretion. To provide a range of views and voices, we encourage letter writers to limit themselves to 700 words or fewer. Separating? Reach out to the Veterans Administration

Re: “The Brass Tacks of Military Retirement” (October/November 2020, p. 48) and “Financial Planning for Your Coast Guard Transition” (October/November 2020, p. 52) It is absolutely vital that every living, separating Coast Guard member, whether discharged or retired, file for a disability evaluation by the Veterans Administration (VA). As part of its “people” initiatives, the Coast Guard should require - not just recommend - this filing by all hands leaving the service. Each person should go through their service and civilian health records and note every possible medical event, treatment and condition. The VA will evaluate each item and, assuming you are generally healthy, grant/not grant service connection, with most or all evaluated at 0% disabling (no payment). The goal at this point is establishing service connection that will follow you for life in the VA system (for any existing or later appearing condition -including any secondary conditions) that might result in compensation later on from the VA. This can be a major undertaking for those with long terms of service – trust me, make the effort. VA compensation is tax free, lasts for your lifetime, and sometimes for your relatives’ lifetimes after you are gone. It is also inflation protected (annual cost of living increases equal to Social Security COLAs). No, I didn’t do this. I did it the hard way, establishing service connection after retirement – sometimes long after retirement. I voluntarily retired in 1998, fit for full duty and apparently healthy. By way of example, many years after retirement, based on service health records documenting allergic rhinitis (hay fever) and sinus infections, the VA granted service connection and a 50% rating for sleep apnea. For this and other ratings, 22 years later in 2020, the VA direct deposits $3,760, every month, for life and inflation protected. Again, make the effort.

CAPT Paul J. Prokop, USCG (ret), ’69

On the Importance of Definitions

Re: “On a Journey of Change” (August/ September 2020, p. 14) and “Letters to the Editor” (October/November 2020, p.8) The coverage of efforts to improve and support diversity as well as correct problems at the Academy raises concerns about the limited use of language and definitions. When I was a Swab(!) we had many more words to describe relationships than just “racism.” We started with ignorance. Given the divided nature of America, I suspect it is still possible for whites not to have BAME (common British reference for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) friends and acquaintances. Understanding thus becomes difficult as there are not common references and experiences. Humans rely on stereotypes to fill in the gaps. While some may find this offensive, I must admit, much to my chagrin, I have found that stereotypes frequently have a grain of truth in them. After 30 years of living in Britain, I have come to appreciate how stereotypes can help provide a common language or reference system to allow a relationship to progress. I no longer take offence or become frustrated when a stereotype pops up at a first meeting. I use it as an opening to do a bit of educating and take pleasure seeing others move beyond stereotypes. Ignorance allows bias to flourish. This is because humans build systems, processes and organizations based on their references and experiences. Being unaware of another’s references and experiences means the systems, processes and organizations created do not account for the requirements of others and do not make them feel welcome. My experience of this occurred in my first job on a construction site. The Christmas Lunch was duly arranged at the American Steak House restaurant in central London. They thought they were making an effort to include me in this British Tradition. Lots of embarrassment followed when I explained I was a vegetarian (for what felt like the 100th time) and was not a great lover of “American food” compared to the wonderful foods on offer in London. However, they did learn this time and we had a great Thai dinner. I am pleased to report that in my experience most people want to learn and correct any bias that results. Gentle words on my part usually speeded up the process and made it enjoyable for all. Failure to address bias leads to prejudice. People take a disliking to others for a variety of very good reasons. Skin color, religion, origin and sexual preference are not among them. Prejudice usually manifests itself by omission, such as not including someone in events or opportunities, allowing a process to remain even when shown that it disadvantages a group or holding derogatory opinions of others. Any manifestation is low key and is usually most successfully dealt with by rules, laws and organizational polices. My experience of this was getting notes through my door about talking too loudly in our back garden and about “being a guest in this country so we should behave accordingly.” As an aside, we thought our neighbor was antiSemitic. But when a German/Swiss couple moved in a couple of houses down, he was as unpleasant to them as to us. It was an odd relief to realize that he was merely xenophobic and not anti-Semitic. The issue was addressed through the housing trust that provides his residence. I am sure he still dislikes us and is vehemently prejudice against foreigners. But the important thing for us is that he no longer manifests his prejudice. What

one does is more important than what one thinks. However, if prejudice is not dealt with then it becomes racism. This used to be when someone not only disliked someone based on their skin color, religion, origin, or sexual preference but actively undermined equality laws and acted, often violently, on their prejudice. So I have no problem saying it was a racist who painted a swastika on the building of a member of my synagogue after the results of the Brexit referendum were announced. And I have no problem saying that the actions taken against them should not be the same as someone who is ignorant, biased, or prejudiced. I have only read the reports and the letters in the Bulletin about the efforts to address issues around diversity at the Academy. All seem to lack the nuance needed when dealing with organizations and relationships involving humans. All seems to be couched in terms of “racism.” This borders on the old adage that “when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.” So I am not surprised the Academy is still struggling with diversity issues. Finally, using only one term or one approach becomes divisive. It creates an environment where everything is “their” fault, “they” must change” and “they have the real problem.” I would encourage people to visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/ play/m000nm5m for an eloquent exploration of this problem. The link is Hashi Mohamed talking about his experience of being a black Muslim in Britain.

Jon Burden ’81

Recruiting Challenges and Racial Gaps

Re: “On a Journey of Change” (August/ September 2020, p. 14) We believe the nation is best served when the Cadet Corps is diverse, the education is rigorous, and the environment is inclusive and fair. We know many women and racially diverse graduates faced unique challenges and/or hostile incidents as cadets, and CGA data show persistent racial outcome differences, so we applaud we submitted an article for this issue to inform alumni of the impacts of CGA’s admission preferences and to persuade Coast Guard leadership to pursue diversity through enhanced recruiting, not admissions preferences. We also hoped to convince alumni that improving CGA’s recruiting of diverse applicants is critical as CGA can’t land the country’s best and brightest when we struggle to attract the 75+% of college students who are women and minorities. However, the Alumni Association declined to print our article because we opined about admissions last year and asked us to write this Letter to the Editor instead. It is concerning that the Alumni Association won’t print data that we feel contributes to this important discussion, especially data that highlight gaps in their argument, but we appreciate them including this link to our new article [available at www.cgaalumni.org/ Dec20]. CGA’s challenges drawing women and minority applicants play a significant role in our broader applicant declines, and the applicant pool would almost double if CGA attracted women and minority applicants at the same rates as white men. Additionally, improved recruiting of racially diverse applicants would reduce CGA’s racial outcome gaps and better position CGA for the future as the country’s population becomes even more diverse. We agree with the Alumni Association that the Academy must be welcoming for all cadets, providing each with an equal opportunity. However, we believe that this alone won’t eliminate racial performance gaps or address CGA’s other admissions challenges, so we call on the Academy, Coast Guard, and alumni to triple the number of women and racially diverse applicants (while also increasing white male applicants and reducing admissions preferences) over the next five years. Given the racial differences in our country, this will be challenging work, but it will lead to a more diverse and capable cadet corps. Turn to!

continuous improvement efforts. However, the current conversation ignores key issues that we feel must be resolved to reduce racial outcome gaps: Amidst huge national increases in minority and women college students, CGA has not drawn these applicants at proportional rates. Rather, we believe admissions preferences have driven CGA’s diversity increases and data suggest these preferences are a major cause of CGA’s racial outcome gaps. Last December, we wrote “Where Have All the Applicants Gone” for The Bulletin discussing how annual applications have dropped from 4,500 to 2,000 per year, that CGA draws many fewer cadets who finished in the top 10% of their high school class, and that the number of cadets attending preparatory schools has more than doubled [you can view that article at www. cgaalumni.org/Dec20]. In that article, we withheld sensitive data that that we believe show racial admission preferences appear to be causing much of CGA’s racial outcome gaps. However, these data were part of a more detailed report provided to CGA and Coast Guard leadership, which was later summarized for the Alumni Association board. To give you some sense of the extent of CGA’s admission preferences, for applicants to the Classes of 2015-2022 with SAT scores between 1110-1200, women were admitted at more than double the rate of men and Blacks were admitted at more than five times the rates of whites. These preferences skew qualifications by race, yet when controlled for SAT scores (especially Math scores) CGA’s racial GPA differences shrink considerably. In short, wellintended actions to increase diversity succeeded in that regard, but had the unintended (but foreseeable) result of increasing GPA gaps, and we believe enhanced recruiting is a far better approach. However, SAT scores do not explain all the outcome differences, and we endorse examining the causes of these residual differences. Given that the Alumni Association had this information, it troubled us that they pointed to racial gaps as evidence of systemic racism without acknowledging that these gaps appear intensified by actions taken to improve diversity. In response,

John Fox ’97 & Ian MacGregor ’97