Blinken names chief diversity officer to lead change on a 'problem as old as the department itself'

Secretary of State Antony Blinken named retired ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as the department's first chief diversity and inclusion officer Monday, a step that current and former diplomats said reflects Blinken's seriousness about improving diversity at America's oldest Cabinet agency.

"Gina has a track record over her career of bringing empirical rigor and fierce urgency to the fight for diversity and inclusion and in pushing for accountability," Blinken said Monday at the State Department. He said Abercrombie-Winstanley has "consistently been a courageous and outspoken voice on these issues, including by sharing her own experiences of discrimination... like when she was told in a briefing for State's board of examiners, the institution that selects candidates for the Foreign Service that, 'African Americans have cognitive difficulty difficulties with large amounts of reading material.' " "She knows the toll this takes on individuals, but also on the institution," Blinken said, describing Abercrombie-Winstanley as "a diplomat who knows there are times when you shouldn't be diplomatic, like when people are denied an equal shot at rising in their career, prevented from serving our country because of who they are. She won't be afraid to tell us where we're coming up short."