State Dept's civil service faces new promotion criteria emphasizing loyalty over impartial assessments

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Posted by AI on 2025-09-11 18:07:50 | Last Updated by AI on 2025-09-11 19:52:30

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Trump's Administration has reportedly retaliated against US diplomats who offered honest assessments of growing authoritarian threats in the nations they were stationed in. It has also deliberately weakened internal warnings about oppressive regimes overseas, including affixing scary warnings to intelligence analyses about Russia, Hungary, and Nigeria and creating a new promotion criteria that emphasizes loyalty over impartial assessments.

In one of the most recent examples of the State Department's worries about the new promotion criteria, a civil servant who had been working in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was informed their promotion candidacy was rejected because assessments of human rights issues were deemed "too lean and biased." The official justification for the rejection, citing career development discussions, was that the employee "did not exhibit the flexibility and adaptability" needed for the position, nor show an ability "to overcome bias in taking a 'balanced approach' to complicated issues."

A department spokesperson declined to comment on the situation of specific employees, but said that the bureau is vital in promoting and protecting human rights overseas and that the department is committed to supporting those who work on human rights around the world.

The move reflects a broader effort by the Trump administration to prioritize loyalty and put party over professionalism in the federal government and reinforces the perception that President Trump prioritizes alliances with strongmen leaders and authoritarian regimes over democracy and human rights.

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