A conservative group with ties to the Trump administration is working to reshape hiring and promotion practices at the State Department, according to those tracking the effort. The Ben Franklin Fellowship, founded by allies of the president, is pushing to eliminate diversity initiatives and elevate career diplomats aligned with Trump's policy agenda.
The group's strategy targets long-standing agency programs designed to recruit and retain employees from underrepresented backgrounds. Simultaneously, its founders are advancing candidates for senior positions who share the administration's foreign policy worldview, creating what critics say amounts to a loyalty test within the diplomatic corps.
The effort marks an intensification of pressure from Trump's inner circle to steer the State Department away from what they view as progressive institutional habits. By focusing on personnel decisions and program overhaul, the group is attempting to cement ideological change that would persist beyond any single administration.
The Ben Franklin Fellowship operates with connections to key Trump advisers and has gained access to internal State Department discussions. This proximity has raised concerns among career diplomats and civil servants who worry about the politicization of what has historically been a merit-based hiring system.
Diversity programs at federal agencies have become a flashpoint in conservative politics. Efforts to eliminate such initiatives have already proceeded in other departments, and the State Department push suggests a coordinated effort to remake the federal workforce according to Trump administration priorities.
The influence of outside groups in shaping internal agency operations is not new, but the explicit focus on overturning diversity practices and installing loyalists represents a particularly direct approach to institutional change.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "This is textbook institutional capture disguised as reform, and it should alarm anyone who believes career diplomacy requires independence, not partisan litmus tests."
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