In the early years of the Cold War, the U.S. government embarked on sweeping purges of federal employees deemed security risks. While the Red Scare targeted suspected communists, the lesser-known “Lavender Scare” saw the mass dismissal of gay and lesbian federal workers, especially within the State Department.
Under the pretext that their sexual orientation made them susceptible to blackmail and disloyalty, thousands of government employees were investigated, fired, or forced to resign.
More than a half-century later, echoes of the Lavender Scare are reverberating through federal agencies as President Donald Trump and his appointees scuttle programs that focus on recruiting and retaining members of marginalized communities. The president, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and others argue that DEI efforts have divided and demoralized the members of Defense Department and the intelligence community.
But some national-security observers and former officials say that the anti-DEI efforts themselves are doing harm.
“I think what we’re seeing now is just too hard of a swing of the pendulum,” said Mark S. Zaid, a prominent national-security attorney. “What’s happening now is devastating to morale and so harmful to national security because it’s hurting the individuals inside the agencies.”
A diverse workforce is essential to effective cybersecurity, which requires not just technical but also human and cultural factors, one former senior White House cybersecurity official said. By understanding how people’s behaviors and societal dynamics interact with technology, the U.S. can better identify risks and craft solutions, they said.
“If DEI-focused staff and programs don’t create pathways for people from rural communities, women, people of color and other underrepresented groups into national-security spaces, we lose out on the benefit of the innovation and increased effectiveness that comes from differing viewpoints and lived experiences,” said the former official. “Having a diverse team is the best way to see beyond ‘normal’ behavior.”
Being an outsider in the national security establishment is extremely challenging, said one former Pentagon official who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. In their first year on the job handling communications for a defense secretary, they described colleagues being “incredibly brusque” with them.
“I got a lot of comments that boiled down to ‘my wife’s hair dresser is a homosexual,’ or ‘my cousin’s a homosexual and interior designer,’” the former official said. “Ok, cool. Are you also going to tell me that your accountant is a Jew or that your dry cleaner is Chinese?”
They said the purge of DEI initiatives presages the return of a monoculture in the U.S. armed forces. “It’s raising the premise that if you’re not a straight white man…you should not in fact be there.”
In 1950, around 93 percent of veterans were white, according to Census Bureau data published in late 2023. That figure is now around 74 percent.
One former State Department official described the moves as “corrosive” to the reputation of the nation on the world stage because it doesn’t demonstrate a willingness to value contributions of people with heritage from other nations and cultures. Foreign adversaries could use anti-DEI efforts to undermine U.S. credibility on human rights and portray American institutions as hypocritical on issues of equality and inclusion, they said.
Soviet propagandists routinely used images of racial discrimination in America — notably, police brutality against Black civil rights activists in the 1960s — to argue that the U.S. was hypocritical in its promotion of democracy.
“We provided the truth that [the Soviets] used against us in many parts of the world from the treatment of some Americans. This will do the same,” said the ex-State official.
Eliminating employee-resource groups that support members of diverse communities will decrease retention, said Zaid and former officials.
“Historic cultural affinity groups are really important inside the agencies and other organizations. As humans … it helps us develop security, one-on-one, of being able to talk and associate with like-minded people,” Zaid said.
He said those groups are especially important for agents working on a non-official cover basis — used to describe operatives who work undercover without official ties to their government — meaning that they have especially intensive jobs with highly classified markings whose details can’t even be shared with close family or a therapist.
As well, employee-resource groups can open opportunities for leadership, skill development, and networking, which can help advance careers and reduce turnover, according to data compiled by the U.S. Commerce Chamber.
A homogenous national-security workforce would severely hamper U.S. intelligence operations in several ways, former officials said. In the field, spies would struggle to blend into diverse populations, compromising their ability to gather crucial information. Recruiting or retaining linguists with native-level fluency in nuanced languages like Russian or Chinese — often cultivated in specific cultural contexts and family settings — would become a major obstacle, these people add.
Ultimately, anti-DEI efforts will narrow U.S. understanding of global challenges and hinder effective foreign policy strategies, they argued.
My identity “wasn’t even a consideration when I was hired,” said one former member of the intelligence community who is LGBTQ+. “The reality of the situation is that if you want to be competitive in a global world, you need to find people who have an understanding of backgrounds, languages, customs and cultures. You can’t build an intelligence community that’s capable of recruiting assets in different countries by being isolationist and xenophobic.”
The White House did not return a request for comment asking whether it has weighed these concerns in its decision to slash these programs.
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