>> there are 50 other people that would like to ask questions. we don't have times because president kim has to get back to the bank. let me just say this is an agenda that he's outlined not just for the world bank but for all of us. this is a goal everyone should embrace. we should all say thank you to you for your vision, leadership and would you please thank him with your awepplause. [ applause ]

>> we are committed to our professions future through programs just like this and we fight for a free press worldwide. for more information about the club visit our website, press.org. to donate to programs offered through our clubs, journalism institute visit press.org/institute. on behalf of members worldwide i want to welcome you to today's luncheon. i'd like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. you can follow the action on twitter. use the hashtag npc lunch. remember, the public attends our lunches applause is not evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity.

i'll ask as many questions as time permits. our head table includes working people who are members of the national press club. from the right will watson. a former newspaper editor and 20-year national press club member. larry holdren, patrick host. captain sydney dawson u.s. air force, aid to the superintendent and a guest of the speaker. donald linewein.

gene tie. thank you so much. lieutenant cassiem.gra m. granell. business editor for aviation week business magazine. [ applause ] michelle johnson joins us to mark the 60th anniversary of the air force academy which she

leads. she was the first female cadet to become a wing commander. the first women's basketball to score 1,700 points and the first female graduate to be chosen as a rhodes scholar. johnson was selected to head the academy in 2013 by then defense secretary chuck hagel. this was at a time when the academy was dealing with scandals involving sexual assault, cheating drug use and religious infollow rans. johnson replaced the head of the athletic department five months ahead of his scheduled retirement and ordered changes to fix an athletic culture that she said did not align with our core values end quote.

johnson has begun taking steps to position academy graduates to deal with issues that have moved from science fiction to real world threats. the academic practice now includes classes in cyber warfare and major in computer network security. immediately before her appointment to head the air force academy, johnson was the deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence at nato headquarters. will you give a warm national press club welcome to lieutenant general michelle johnson. >> thank you so much for including me in this historic institution. the free press part is obviously so important to our democracy. just the history of this

building is extraordinary to be included in this number. i appreciate it very much. it's been a wonderful week. we came out a couple of days ago with the football team and take the commander and chief trophy's to the white house yesterday. we're glad to own that for a while. i'll talk more about that later. there's more to us than football. in the morning we went to arlington cemetery and the seniors were there with the coaches. we went out to the tomb of unknown soldiers. as we were walking away i spotted a grave.

for today so timely with the fly by we have just seen from the 70th anniversary of the victory over the european theater. it's really extraordinary to remind the cadets what we're part of and what this means. it's really something to think about and thoi about the salespeople who sign up and are willing to serve in this day and age. it's been a wonderful experience and at the white house yesterday for the president to shake the cadets hands and look them in the eye and understand when we take an oath to the constitution it encompasses all of this. it's been really exciting to be here. it's always great to be in washington when people would washington. i guess people would say that

when you live in colorado. it's easier for academics, government leaders to gopher overgo over to indianapolis. it's an all volunteer force now. to have them understand it's a possibility. each one of us has a role in all these things. the academies have a role that we play and we're only one of a triad triad. there's rotc reserve officer training. there's officer training school

where people with their academic degree can be trained and be an officer and the service academy that are four-year undergraduate institutions that issue bachelor's degrees regardless of your major. there's so much foundation that everyone has bachelor of science degree even if you're an english major. that's part of trying to develop leaders who are balanced. that's our job. we're not as agile as rotc but we can have a more long term affect, we think. that's why we exist. roughly one-fourth are graduates of the academy. at tend of the day over half of the general officers have been academy graduates.

people come with the intent to stay a long time fp cadets are expecting a meaningful experience that will provide the foundation for them to graduate and serve as a fabric with which the other service commissioning services communicate to make an officer core especially in our air force. when i arrived that actually if i could say and i would love for you to come visit and know that 99% of the activities and the cadet activities out there are just like you'd want to be in the brochure. it was a time of sequester and some draconian budget cuts that maybe hasn't been thought through all the way.

what my businessmen mentors tell me is don't waste a good crisis. i had my team put it together so that it wasn't me directing top down. i said first and foremost it's leadership and character development. that's what expect of us. not just from the military officers but from the faculty. from even the support system that's in our air base wing. they're the ones who turn the electricity on and the water and make the buses arrive on time. all of those people have a responsibility to help instul character and leadership development. that's the purpose. but also to expose the cadets to all the aspects of the air force

mission. air, whether they go into fly or not just understanding how it works. what it's like to fly, the logistics required. the discipline it takes to do some flying or jump out of plane planes and hopefully the parachutes open. material to make it all work. just a trying to make this work. we have work to do on those fronts. airmen are different than soldiers and sayilorssailors. we're supposed to be. you want us to be resourceful.

airmen were born -- i saw david mccullough this morning. things happen at a high rate of speed and stay disciplined. that's a balance we strike. it's emergent. it's all the time. we don't just wear uniforms on thursday. not that there's anything wrong with that. it's day in and day out. that's one of the interesting areas with the new generation, with the millenials and how to

work in this ethos in this emersion in a world where you're connected all the time, every minute with a smartphone or something in your hand which is different than the cloister model from 1802 that west point started with. how and should we cloister people away in 2015? we're exploring some avenues that i'll share with you in a moment. we also want the expose the cadets to a professional culture. we march to lunch. we dress like this all the time. we honor the dead.

we celebrate the culture. let me get this straight we're all happy that person just got promoted? yes. and the raise that goes with it? yes. the best in each other is the best in all of us. marching to lunch is part of that as well. i said i know you won't be marching into battle but the discipline and the team work and attention to detail in showing the pageantry and performing the pageantry gives people confidence that you can do the other things with discipline and team work and attention to detail as well and so far they've bought that. also probably most singularly what we're known for that doesn't come out in the headlines is the caliber and quality of education we provide. from the very beginning at the air force academy and prevails at the other academyies as well this was meant to be a balanced

curriculum, harmonizeing technical cognizance and ability to do problem solving that science require but also balance with humanities because we're meant to lead humans and most of the things the president said had to do with humans. not our math, not our technology, not our science. if we don't understand the human condition and try to see how the ancient writers or modern poets address human conditions so we can deal wl the abstract problems. also to compete.

i'm going to fight to win. i'm going to do it with self-respect. whether it's the forensic team, debaters debaters. it's competing to be the best. we have over 400,000 tourists a year. we'd like to have more. we like to maintain an open and secure base.

hopefully be a nexus for outreach and people come and share. we need to protect our precious cargo out there. there are real threats because we're a very symbolic place. i mun indicated back to the air staff and said is this what you want us to do? they said yes, do that. i said it will cost this much. they said okay. good work. they've been really supportive to make it. the numbers that are thrown in in washington rrnts huge. we don't even make the back up slides in the budget discussions. it's important because it's tra tooejic because it's education and training. it's our seed corn. we've been tremendously supported by the air force in that. what are we going to do with that. we know what we're suppose to do

now. the essence of the academy. we know why we're supposed to do it. i wrote a column in the colorado springs gazette which you may or may not have read but it had to do with the legos issue i go through with my 12-year-old twin sons. how will we have them solve problems that don't have a picture on the box to say what this supposed to look like. how do we create minds creative enough and disciplined enough to solve these attractable problems better than we have. with a changing input signal. in 1959, the first class

graduated with 2007 men. in 18 days we'll graduate 674 men and 189 women. we have about 23% women now. 27% minorities. although the nature of minorities is changing in our country too because of the blended nature of our country this is pretty great that the boxes on the surveys almost don't apply anymore. we also have students from other nations too. these students that are coming are pretty impressive.

it's congressional districts determine applicants come in. we depend on our congressional delegations to appoint them. this is why when we want to make sure we get balance and diversity we have other things and avenues to try to make sure we look like the country we defend which may not happen in that process. it takes a phd to figure out how the rules work on that. that's the nature of our sessions. when i talk to other college presidents they have a little different approach. these are amazing people who come in.

the average high school gpa is 3.8. more than 80% are into high school athletic letter. have high caliber people. our duty is to make sure we offer our essence those eight areas in way that challenges them and ensures they are ready for a complex future. we want to do that by deliver those eight elements. academically we're examining our outcomes. what should someone know toe be an agile thinker. our dean got his doctoral work at m.i.t. i think it's great he's not a graduate of the air force academy. we try to have some circulation to make sure that we're relevant. we're looking at a core

curriculum to make it more interdisciplinary than multidisciplinary. if we look at cyber, we want to have the people focusing on law and political science to say what are the other consequences of that technology. how are we thinking about that. it was mentioned a computer and network security and nuclear weapons and strategy as well. four of the negative two gs when i was riding along. i was not in g shape.

the student was an instructor pilot. the discipline, logistics of it are what they need to be aware of. getting ready to do falcon set 6. we catch a ride on someone else's rocket when they launch it and work closely with space command. in space they maneuver it and try to make sure they're ready to go and an understanding of what our missions in the air force are. all of our cadets are learning more about cyber as the connective tissue.

wo try to live it every day. they come up with things better than when we were cadets. when the squadrons compete, instead doing more push ups and sit ups, they also were able to use competitions that include some mutter kourtss. there's a bit of rolling in mud and things.

it's a technology that's in use in haiti after the country was so devastated there. they are learning how to do a control room to say not only are we we are forming these things we're tracking how it's conducted. you can see that's an analogy for something they'll do in the real world or if there's another catastrophe they can use the software to do it better than we did. they'll know more than the generals will about that particular thing. the other thing we're trying to do in our approach is sort of take into account a photograph that thomas pain wrote. at the beginning it said these are times that try men's souls. the party what we obtain to cheaply, we esteem too lightly. you need to have skin if the

game. i remember when i was a cadet 35 years ago and on faculty 20 years ago, and i see it again now. if we're overmanaging people and overscheduling people especially in 2015 how are we helping them learn to be adults. how are we helping them walk out the door ready to go and not have to find themselves for a couple of years. how do we balance the immersion and discipline with relevant leadership and approach it differently. we're letting go a bit and saying you don't have to sign in and be where you need to be at 6:45 in the morning. i could rundown right now but i have three papers to do. i'm going to make it work.

we have to be brave when they scrape their knee. we have to know the drifs between scraping their knee and going akroosz the line. we want the help them make good choices so they have the skill sets. we're looking at their schedule of calls which is 53 minute classes with seven minutes in between. i asked the dean does that sound like college to you. we're looking at the way we do classes. longer time for labs. maybe even classes.

every kid is an athlete. it's a tough physical fitness test to pass. they would help clear out. maybe a fire or floods or helping out. they do a lot of steam out reach

with local schools, k-12. there's so many ways to contribute and sometimes it's by athletic teams and sometimes it's groups of cadets. some of the things you do that just are the trials that you do. it's like you have to jump off the ten meter board and swim under a bulkhead and clear the waters. you have to do that face your own fears. to organize the intramural program themselves and do the logistics of that to make it work. in terms of culture and climate we look forward to opening this new building called character and leadership development. it's represented all across the academy but this is one place where people can gather to work

on that. it's founding on an honor code. a lot of colleges have an honor code. you got to live honorably. what does that mean? those are the kinds of things we're trying to address with them. we're also trying to think about what is the new professional arms will like. will it require more moral courage in social media than physical courage. how do you measure that. is the proximity to harm, proximity to danger. do we value only valor or some other value you have. how do we measure that. you can hear that it's a lot of time in coalitions with nato and

but also joint. we need to fit these things together and have people think that way. we know we need to work with the cadets. we also realize you could have pristine character but if you're in a toxic varmt the best you could do is maybe not budge them but the worst thing is you become part of it. it's the bad apples versus the bad barrel. i don't think we're paying attention to the barrel. talk about the professional development for this faculty and stuff and say how are we doing? are we living up those things we asked the cadet to do. it's easy to plam the generation to say this generation is not honorable but how with we doing. that's what we're focusing on the professional development.

diversity of thought, your background. that's what we mean by respecting people as they come in. it's not easy to plans this out. there are many national issues that are played out on our front lawn because there are many, southern colorado is an interesting place with outlooks on life and politics. we have religious headquarters across the way from us and colorado's legalized marijuana. that's not for us but this is interesting place to be in the middle of all that and try to balance it and also the issue of sexual assault. it's a plague on campuses nationwide. we just been screening the new documentary the hunting ground. we've had chance to see that. it lays out a lot of issues you

may know. we're working really hard to figure out how best to discuss this issue with this generation. our generation didn't talk to us much about this. we sort of mom and dad, i don't know about your parents w we didn't have long conversations about what a healthy sexual relationship is and what are the boundaries you need to observe. the things you say in social kbleed have consequences in the physical world. you can't be two different people and if you are we get ourselves in a tough situation. we're trying to be more frank making myself uncomfortable and the staff and how to eliminate key enablers. if you ask experts like the dynamic lawyer in denver, high school boys see 60 views of pornography a week. it's not loving, beautiful

artistic pornography. it's dangerous stuff. we need to understand that and have talks about this and alcohol. i've been working with the superintendents of the other academies very closely. we put together a paper that's been published by the inside higher education to describe here is what we do at the service academies. we're kaled out in an op-ed a few months ago for not reporting under the cleary act. we said why don't we lay out how much we do report so people can know where we are and next week i'll have the dod biannual survey come out. in alternate years they do anonymous survey to understand what the prevalence is. we measure against the reports to see how close we're getting.

we want the reports to go up so we can know this is a terribly underreported crime. we want the reports to match the incidents and we want them to go down. we're all working on that. we laid it out in an article that you're welcome to refer to. we try to refer to the experts in the field. we want to make sure we hold the perpetrators accountable. this is an area where it's very difficult, as you can imagine. even though there are sort of expectations about when you hear the word rape or sexual assault what that is, it's about being penetrated without consent frankly and short. about one fifth of our reports are that. a lot of times it's a continuation of continuum of behavior where someone crosses

the line and two lives are damaged. that's about one fifth of them. another one-fifth are things that happened them before they came but the academy. if you can make a report restricted so that means we don't investigate it we just take care of you or you make it unrestricted, we'll take care of you and able to prosecute. more and more of our reports are becoming unrestricted. we can try to prosecute. three-fifths of the assaults are in that area of unwanted touching, unwanted sexual contact. it's an area we really haven't addressed as a nation that much. i think that's where the conversation needs to go to what's really happening and how do people have guidelines on this. some things used to be funny. i can't listen to the sound track, the musical grease anymore because the scene at the end of the summer when the boys are out at the bleachers asking

what happened over the summer, the line that says does she put up a fight. really? that was funny. that's the area we're in. it used to be okay. it was getting to second base but getting sec base if the other person doesn't want you to, it could be men or women. it's a crime. that's the kind of stuff we're dealing with. we want to have a climate of respect and avoid having the marginal issues steal our narrative. most of our 4,000 cadets are exactly who you'd want them to be. when it goes wrong we want to prosecute, save, help, rehabilitate and address it and help. finally, on a lighter note we're trying to think of what other things can we do to help make make decisions, practice habits and thoughts and having a perspective that helps them understand the context of what

we're doing so they don't feel like they are prisoners. they really aren't. can you imagine the difference in life between a regular college student and being someone in service academy. our dean coordinated with the faculties to make sure the majors could be pursued but the leaders in rotc units. we picked really strong students at first. we said what will you find out about your own maturity and what will you learn to bring back to us. we're going to invite about six rotc students to us next year in fall. what can we learn from you? what are you learning in the free civilian world versus at the air force academy? how can we adjust to this

generation? this will only be small numbers but this is one of a menu of things we're trying to look at. also so they can learn how to cook for themselves or maybe go to a male oneal on time. to wrap it up, we think it's working. we repeatedly recognized for our success in academics and research. we're number two in aero and astro engineering. business insiders mostly

standardized tests they go by. the guys at west point think our academics are harder than theirs. when our cadets go there they always get on the deans list. it doesn't work the other way. that do all kinds of amazing things. they do community service. just trying to get ready to be leaders in the air force. leaders you can be proud of. intelligence surveillance and commander control. this is missions of the air force. we don't do them with the same flat forms that you just saw fly by. we do them with new platforms. we want our cadets to be ready to rise to that. i'm so honored you let me tell you about the air force academy.

i'll be glad to answer your questions. thank you. >> thank you so much. here in washington we hear about budget collageshallenges and sequestration. we're sort of in a period of austerity in the military in some regards. how does this affect the view from the cadets? does it make it for difficult for you to attract cadets to this type of environment? >> obviously we all face similar challenges. we try to go back to basics and have discipline in our system. when we ask for money it really is justifiable. it really makes sense. i would say the bigger impact isn't on the cadets because we can work harder to make sure we take care of their appearance. it's difficult to maintain a adult if you don't have

stability. this is a challenge of sequester for us and stability because we're labor intensive. we're an institution of higher education. if this has happened in the past it's for the flow of our faculty. that's where our challenge comes. >> what is the future for airmen and women and if a child born today wants to be an air force fighter pilot will there be a job for him or her 21 years from

now? >> well, the way it goes with our airplanes, we don't retire them until they're 50 or 70 years old. i think that's a pretty fair bet. one thing i would just offer is we so often think of these things as separate. it's not separate anymore. they do not act in isolation. it takes 40 or 50 feem to support an orbit from a remotely pilots aircraft. it's tanlist technicians, to be able to get the pictures, the connectivity. it's a network and so for someone to be in rapid city south dakota and have a target at risk in afghanistan be cyber links to satellite being driven by someone in colorado springs and bounced off a pod maybe off a coligtsalition aircraft and in support of ground forces, it's hard to take any of those things in isolation.

people seeing it as networks. he and i talked about this. an f-35 isn't just an airplane. it's a node. new fighters aren't just like the ones we just saw fly past which were on their own. it's a node. it's part of a system. when you look at the fighters. they linked. that's why they are fifth generation firefighters. it's not just the stealth. it's the other things that they are linked to. for airmen there will be a place for a piloted aircraft. we haven't made the leap in commercial airlines either to let there will robotic pilots. there's some decisions that have to be made that humans need to do. cyber isn't a separate thing.

it's connected to everything. we're as a rulerable in the united states because it's us. every time we pick up a smart phone you may not do it. a little geeky but i think which tower, which fiberoptic cable which different ones am i tapping into that i can't know because it's free speed of light. i think of it if we can think of it as a network that's the challenge. knowing how we all fit into that network. >> get several questions about the cyber and you mentioned it in your talk and just now and whether the programs have adapted vast enough at the academy to meet this new challenge but also the interest from cadets in this area is this something they are coming in and really want to go into or do we still need to recruit and persuade people to be interested in cyber security. >> the recruiting and explaining isn't as much for the topic of society it's for dressing like

this and running and marching and calling for mud and jumping off tower and those things. when i talk to some of the candidates that want to come here, kids talk about that a lot, i just want to go into cyber. i think we're all behind a bit. there's some wonderful things happening in our research. we have p 1919 research centers. it's sometimes a couple of guys on a server so don't think it's so great. one of the things they have done is come up with a way to map the incidents of malware in a particular network. i have a picture outside my office that looks like flowers from laugh in set with crazy flowers from the 60s. if you look at it it's the links between bits of malware that are detected in a system so you can stop it from happening again. if someone wants to invest in that they can do it once and you've got it and you can move forward. that's the kind of stuff they're

coming up with for cyber defense and we want to have more of that kind of awareness and just also for the practictioners to not laugh that off. that's the modern warfare i want a picture of that next to an airplane and rocket because that's where we're going. everybody needs to be linked. that's where the really great ideas come from. we're doing this in conjunction with space command. we like that to be like the equivalent of our airfield so our cadets can get a fill for this. it's part of a weapon system that we have as well. >> you mentioned sexual assault, sexual harassment. this questioner notes that they have come out in support of a

policy that puts sexual harassment in the hands ot prosecutor. what do you think is the best way to handle this and how do you handle this at the air force academy. >> i'm a commander. i know how difficult it is to prosecute. if you just talk to the civilian prosecutors it's no easier to prosecute these cases in the civilian world. the conviction rate is no higher than ours. i would say as a commander we have programs in place now and this is why we wrote it down at length. every month we have case management group and we talk about our victims. not to have reprisal but say what help does this person need. at the same time our lawyers try to work with investigators to prosecute when own the jurisdiction of the case which

we normally do and see if we can cake it to court. we're held accountable for the choices we make because that's also this language to make sure that we can account for our choices if something should go forward or not to a court. in our case as well, there's also disciplinary stuff that we can do militarily to say if it doesn't rise to the level of a crime, we still want to discipline people because of this culture of respect we expect and that they sign up for. i feel like we have been very accountable and more transparent than ever and hopefully we can earn the trust then, of others as well as we try to get best practices from others. that's why we wrote down exactly what we do and we're inspected and surveyed constantly as you can imagine. so i think the commander owes it to the organization to live up to it. when commanders are at fault hold us accountable, too. i don't know that that would be the panacea for this. i don't think it would be and that's why the department's position is continue to have

commanders be responsible for that. i'm a commander. >> if you had the whole cadet four-year experience to do over again, what would you do now that you didn't do then and how would you change that experience? also, what was it like for you in the late 1970s as a woman? how were you treated at the academy and how has the treatment of women at service academies changed or improved? >> i was in the second co-ed class and you were in the third co-ed class. so lynn was a colleague from the air force as well. i think the difference between then and now people would just say "we don't want you here, why are you here?" [ laughter ] at least you could see it coming. and they challenged your existence. it's changed. it was a huge change. i can't imagine a woman doing that therefore you shouldn't do it. you get these kind of crazy catch-22 things said to you like "women can't do that."

but i can do that "well, then there's something wrong with you if you can do it." and the good news is we've come through that. i don't see that. and you guys just graduated. am i doing okay, lt? that's not at issue it's hard for boys to go to men and girls to grow to women in a competitive environment so it's not perfect but that doesn't seem to be the issue of rejecting someone for that. i think this generation seems much more open minded. we have an affinity group for lgbt cadets. i'm sure there are others who aren't out. some people can't go home to mom and dad because mom and dad -- they're not out to mom and dad but they feel safe with us. so there's that level of mutual respect works out pretty well i think. but it wasn't easy back then. it toughens you up a bit if you can work through that. but anybody who's been other, i

can't presume to know what it's like to have a journey of someone with a different color skin that i have but i find as i get more senior there's a lack of diversity of professional thought sometimes. if you don't wear the same badge i wear, i don't know about you. so those are the kinds of things we work through. in that way there's been a great change with this generation. i keep looking at these guys. i'm still doing all right? okay, thanks. this questioner says the air force has had difficulty attracting minority pilots and you can tell us if you believe that's true. what has the academy done to try to address that problem? >> it's a funny thing i'm not sure how it comes to this but this is the -- the department is concerned about making sure everybody has the opportunity that they can have. so we're trying to reach out

more and more and connect with our graduates when they're going to pilot training to say "you can ask for help." sometimes when you're a minority -- i had a brief experience of that when i was at the academy and over the years at the air force. sometimes you don't want to ask for help because of the many things that come along with that. so we've tried to say everybody needs help. you need to trim to level the plane or think about this as you do it, it's okay to do that. we're trying to reach out to youngsters. here's one of the challenges of this, people not aware of the academy or not aware of the military. less than four tenths of one percent of americans ever serve in uniform. away is very plugged in. you guys are a very informed audience but many americans don't know someone in the military. they think of it as "the military." well, i'm not the same as an army private but we have a role you may not realize. so we meet with kids in schools and we try to do as much outreach as we can in underrepresented districts in

the country because we can't target protected classes but we can go to different congressional districts and say, you know this is possible. we have a cadet from compton, california, who was homeless and the captain of the chess team and i went up and talked to him today when the tusk key gee airmen performed with us, and he was playing piano by ear and he's the wing open boxing championship. he was homeless, an african-american kid an american success story. so we know there are kids throughout like that who have the grit and capability and we try to let them know. but i was here for the black engineer of the year awards and talked to kids from middle schools in d.c. and i tried to say what i did. what did you fly? and i said big heavy jets. like c-130s. >> no, bigger than that with jets. but they only knew two kinds of military aircraft because that's what was in their game. 130s and helicopters. [ laughter ] the only way they know about the

military is through games or other people only know the military from movies where all the generals are not always held in the highs esteem sadly. [ laughter ] this is a challenge to let kids know it's possible fun, good. it helps them sometimes to know that i've been married for 25 years this summer, my husband was a pilot and we have twin boys that are 12. that keeps us young and helps us stay in touch and they go "really, you can have a family and be happy?" yeah i'm happy and you can be a pilot and you can have a really amazing contribution to your country so we're trying to reach out more and more. >> before i ask the final question i want to remind our audience about some upcoming speakers. the ceos of american delta, and united arab r-- airlines will meet today one week from today.

garrison keillor author and host of "prairie home companion" will address the press club on may 22 and we want to remind everybody that barry trotts, coach of the washington capitals, is going to be here on july 8 and note that that somes after the stanley cup playoffs. [ laughter ] just in case he's busy up until then. i would now like to present our guest with the traditional npc mug and i will note only today that it is the color of air force blue. [ applause ] final question. you worked as an aide to both president clinton and president bush and, in fact, carried the football which is a very rare experience not many people get to have. can you tell us about the best part of working as an aide to

those presidents and you can tell us which one you liked working with better. [ laughter ] we'd love to know that too. >> sure i'll say that. [ laughter ] you know, the greatest thing for these set of aides i got to see yesterday is being at a transition of an election. i had a chance -- i was in somalia in january of '93 before president bush 41 left office and he was doing a trip out there and i was in somalia and a colonel called me over, i was a major, he said "i worked for carter, i want to give you a tip. when the new administration comes in, it doesn't matter --" he said the reagan administration was very suspicious of anybody from the carter administration just because of the party differences. and he reminded me he said "they don't get that we taken a oath to the constitution. that the commander in chief is the commander in chief and that we have new commanders all the time and that's where our loyalty lies. so just be ready to help the new

administration understand that your their aides because they won and that's how it works in our system." it played out quite that way. so it was extraordinary. i wish i had had that experience before i taught political science at the air force academy, i would have had better stories. now see the exchange of power in the strongest country in the free world that was pretty cordial, a little bumpy but to see the pictures come down on inaugural day and the old staff leave and only the government people stay and the military aides and the new crowd come in in the afternoon is beautiful. it's an amazing thing we have this democratic republic that we live in. so that was the greatest thing to me. i got to work for two presidents in two different generations of two different parties. they both go through the same -- no matter how big of an extra extravert one was over the other, fund-raising was brutal for them to watch them go through that. to have some family space. to try to be able to live their

lives and to try -- for us to try to stay out of their way for both of them, it was just an amazing experience for an officer in the u.s. military but just for a citizen. i would say the favorite thing i would do, i told the cadets about this the other night i said you won't get to do this but there's some very real things about the white house that remind you of why we're here and one of them for me is the original entrance underneath the north portico still has the soot from when the british tried to burn it down in the war of 1812. so when people got potomac fever or i thought i was getting it a little bit i used to go stand and look at that and say, okay wait a second, this is what this place means. and george washington's portrait that dolley madison saved is still up there and john adams' blessing is still on the mant until the state dining room. any picture of abraham lincoln brings tears to my eyes. so what an amazing privilege that was and to get a chance to do that was extraordinary. so i appreciated that so much and i appreciate your time. and i get the mug, it's awesome

thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you so much. i'd also like to thank the national press club staff inclupding its journalism institute and broadcast center for organizing today event and if you would like a copy of today's program or to learn more about the national press club, go to our web site that is press.org. thank you very much. we are adjourned. [ applause ] tomorrow declared and potential republican presidential candidates will be at the south carolina freedom

summit. senator ted cruz and marco rubio join ben carson, carly fiorina and potential candidates rick perry and rick santorum in greenville, south carolina. live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this sunday, mother's day at noon eastern c-span presents the children and grandchildren of america's first families paying tribute to first ladies and remembering life in the white house. susan ford bailes, linda johnson robb, caroline kennedy, the bush daughters jenna and barbara and others. here's margaret hoover on her great grandmother first lady lou hoover. >> unless you study lou henry hoover you don't know that she was the first first lady ever to invite an african-american woman to tea. and it caused a tremendous scandal. it was called the depriest incident.

she was the wife of congressman depriest who had been elected from chicago, an african-american couple and it was the tradition that first ladies always invited all the members of congress's wives to tea. they were quakers, they were socially progressive in the context of their day on this issue. they knew it would be a scandal or it could be a scandal so they tried to handle it in the right way but decided to go ahead because this would be a good move for the country and it did create an outrage. to make her feel better my great grandfather the next day invited her husband to the white house. so this was the first time an african-american was invited to the white house publicly. teddy roosevelt invited booker t. washington but it was a secret meeting. >> more of this conversation with children and grandchildren of first families talking about first ladies sunday at noon eastern time on c-span. next military groups department officials and scholars examine changes for

u.s. servicewomen since the 2013 decision of of the defense department's ground combat exclusion policy. panelists provide an update analyst and assessment of the current status of combat integration. the women in international security, alliance for national defense and the reserve officers' association hosted this event. >> good afternoon. can i ask all of you to take a seat? i think we want to start our proceedings. i'm the president of women in international security also known as wise. i would like to welcome you all to this event women in combat,

where they stand. this is the fifth major event that wise has organized on this particular topic on the issue of the integration of women in the military. and i would like to recognize and thank ellen herring, the director of our combat integration initiative for her leadership on this issue. the combat integration initiative really has a very simple objective and that is to support the successful integration of women in the military and to support the d.o.d. policy that lifts the ban on women serving in combat positions. the initiative brings together both active and former military academics and other analysts and experts of all generations, i would say. they are the first trailblazers in the military as well as a very young generation.

many of them are in the room who are participating in the working group that we have established under the combat integration initiative. and i would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your efforts on this program. and for more on this program i would like to refer you to withithe wis web site wisglobal.org. in january all positions are to be opened and i think that women have served in combat position ss the cultural support teams described in gail lemon's book are a vivid example of that it's also clear in the 21st century the women cannot afford to lose

out on those most talented regardless of their gender. no one wants to compromise the effectiveness of u.s. arms forces and least of all the women who are willing and eager to serve. but change is difficult for any institution, any organization, particularly a large organization such as the u.s. military. we theme this conference will help answer some of the outstanding questions, some of the service ss may still have with regard to full implementation of the new policy. this afternoon we have a very full program and a very rich program and we will examine issues that keep coming up in this debate. one is about the standards for occupational positions. the second is about unit cohesion. and the third is about issues of leadership.

we will hear about the experiences of women in combat and be joined by gail lemon the author of "ashley's war." we will talk about her book and speak with three women who have served in cultural support teams in afghanistan between 2010 and 2013. we will also hear from two members of congress who have been closely following this debate, representative loretta sanchez from california and representative marta mcsally from arizona. i would like to take this occasion to thank them for their support for this particular issue. i'd also like to thank our co-organizers, the alliance for national defense. no exceptions and initiative of the truman national security project and the reserve officers association and last but not

least a big thank you to robert kaufman and the robert kaufman fund in the new york community trust. but we thought to start off this discussion this afternoon we should begin with the department of defense and see where we stand. and we are very happy to hear from two people first of all we'll hear from major general jacqueline von olfost currently serving as the vice director of the joint staff and as such responsible for a whole range of issues including some of these issues. the general started her career in the u.s. air force. afterwards, we will hear from juliet byler director of office and personnel management at the office of the secretary defense. and miss bylor prior to her current position was senior policy advisor in the office of senator jim webb but she also has a 23-year career in the

marine corps. so without further ado, general, please take the floor. >> thank you and good afternoon. doctor, thank you, fellow security professionals, thank you for inviting us here today to discuss the rescission of the ground combat rule. as an air force pilot, removing gender-related barriers to open combat positions for all women is important to me both professionally and personally. until 2013 secretary panetta and general dempsey announced a decision to rescind the direct combat definition and assignment rule. 2013 also marked the 20th anniversary of opening combat aviation to women, including enlisted female air crew members, and allowing women to

begin flying combat missions. i highlight this milestone because i stepped through that door and it, too, presented its challenges. but we got it right. women jumped at the opportunity to be the first to enter, but no one wanted to be the first to fail. if one of us failed, it reflected poorly on all of us. if a male failed, he was just a normal sat stick. successful integration into the career fields and unit required thoughtful implementation. as a captain i was oblivious of the extent of the efforts taken to ensure my success -- the right policies, the right preparation, training a viable career path, engaged leadership mentors and robust communication across the force. today i'm inspired by the young women across the services who desire to serve their nation in these critical ground combat

roles and i both as a senior leader and as a woman am vested in their fully successful implementation. today, 95% of all military occupations are open to women. women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military's mission of defending our nation. women have achieved the rank of four-star general and flag officer and they've been top senior enlisted positions. women are commanding major combat units and navy warships. some have asked why now. over the last decade, more than 280,000 women have deployed in support of our operations in iraq and afghanistan. military leaders across all services saw firsthand that women were already performing a growing number of critical roles on and off the battlefield. our military women are a force multiplier and to quote general dempsey, women strengthen the force. the pictures here represent a few examples of the functions women are performing.

since 2013, d.o.d. has notified congress of the intent to open 91,000 positions that were previously closed. in the top photo in 2013 the marine corps allowed enlisted women to participate in basic infantry training as part of their ongoing research to determine what additional ground combat jobs may be open to female personnel. approximately 34% completed the course. the enlisted infantry school includes a mix of physical training classroom work overnight field exercises that involve live fire events. female enlisted marines who successfully completed the infantry training as part of this research process will not be assigned the infantry as a military occupational specialty or inside a unit, but they are critical to assess and validate the gender-neutral standards. in the second photo, a female was participating in the navy coastal crew member course at

camp lejeune. in december of 2013, the navy notified congress of the intent to open 267 positions in the coastal force and is one example of a field that is now opened and implemented. here a female attending the combat skills course patrols the training grounds during an exercise. the combat skills course is a five week training class that teaches combat skills weapons fundamentals and equipment, land navigation urban operations, offensive and defensive patrols and communications. the navy commodore of the coastal marine group one commented on his personal experience in a combat environment. he said his biggest mission weakness while command ago squadron in al anbar iraq was the fact that he had no women assigned. he recognized that it's less effective to change the hearts and minds of villages along the river banks when you only deal with 50% of the population. one of the most heartening

things he has seen upon his return as a west coast commodore as women graduates and women populating his units. in the bottom photo recently the army announced its intent to open combat engineers to enlisted women. combat engineers are engaged in providing offensive defensive, and stability operations such as reconnaissance reconnaissance, mobility, countermobility and survivability. these engineers operate mounted or explosives u.s. land mine, mine and countermine ops. location detection of ieds, basic combat construction, rigging, field fortifications and bridging support to our combat forces. women already attend the army's combat engineer school and it's considered a model for developing women in combat standards. our military leaders strive to ensure that operations are carried out by the best qualified and most capable service members.

period. this has not changed as we continue to open more positions to women. in fact, the guiding principles established by the chairman and the joint chiefs center around maintaining a strong military ensuring the success of our war fighting forces by preserving unit readiness, cohesion and equality of our all-volunteer force. we're not lowering the standards, nor are we compromising our military doctrine. the key is to have the right standard for the right occupation. when we have done so, the general neutral standards for open positions will provide a wider pool of skilled military personnel and provide commanders more flexibility not less. although some expected the integration to occur immediately, the joint chiefs remain committed to a deliberate process to ensure women are fully successful. the joint chiefs are closely monitoring the progress towards full integration of women within our armed forces. the chairman continues to be a key player as the senior military advisor to the

president and the secretary of defense. the most anticipated decision, of course, will be whether or not to open combat arms, infantry armor and special forces units and occupations to women. as part of his assessment general dempsey not only engages the military leaders, he also actively seeks the opinions of men and women of all ranks, genders, and occupational specialties. i'm inspired by the chairman's leadership and commitment to work with the services to get this right. i can assure you, his recommendations to the secretary will be based on rigorous analysis. but the work will not stop on january 1. we have all learned lessons from previous integration efforts that this is a journey that requires continuous assessment and refining, leadership engagement and motivated female volunteers to institutionalize our progress with the right policies. with that in mind i'd like to turn it over to julia to talk about the policies a wecht. >> thank you very much.

juliet, please. >> good afternoon. thank you. sfm thank you for the invitation to talk about our work since the rescission of the 1994 direct ground combat definition and assignment rule. so sin tomilar to the general my 23 years in uniform, i lived the evolving changes to women's assignment policy. from the low as a sergeant plarks toon sergeant only woman in my company being told -- being dumbfounded and told it was too logistically difficult to take me to desert storm to the high of being the first -- one of the first women when they opened combat engineers to marines in 1994, female marines in 1994 and getting the privilege of leading marines in iraq. so getting this effort wright. and what i'm talking about is the the elimination of these remaining gender-based barriers to service. it matters to me.

rescission of the direct ground combat rule is often referred to as historic, and it certainly is, but many my mind it was also very much the next logical step in the progression of our assignment policies for women. the experience gained in iraq and afghanistan and discussions in the department of defense in 2010 2011 and 2012 led the joint chiefs to the unanimous conclusion that the time had come for us to change our thinking on this. the tipping point had been reached where it no longer made sense to open positions to women by exception. we flipped that presumption on its head. instead, the presumption is everything should be open unless a case can be made to keep it closed. again, though, a big change in the department's thinking on assignment policy. so to that end as the general has already said in january, 2013 secretary panetta and chairman dempsey rescinded that 1994 direct ground combat definition in assignment rule. and they directed the development of plans describing how each service in special operations command intends to

integrate women into those previously closed jobs and occupations and as well how they are going to review and validate their occupational standards to ensure that they are current, operationally relevant and applied gender neutrally by september of 2015. they were also directed to complete all of their studies by september of 2015 and ensure, as you well know full implementation by january 1, 2016. so since that time in early 2013, the department the services have been thoughtfully and thoroughly implementing this policy change. so where are we now? since the ground combat role was rescinded, we have notified congress of our intent to open more than 91,000 positions. prior to that, in 2012, which i considered to be still part of the initial stages of this effort, we opened another 14,000 positions. each service continues to manage the incremental opening of their positions following the required congressional notification in two general categories -- the first, bin one, those currently

open occupations that were closed by virtue of the unit of assignment. so, for example, an administrative clerk in a tank battalion or truck driver, i use that often, in an artillery battery. and then bin two would be those 100% closed occupations. ground combat arms and special operations. so those 106 positions that i mentioned are mostly in bin one. those currently open occupations closed by virtue of the unit of assignment. however, though, the department has opened a whole host of previously closed 100% closed occupations as well. for the marine corps, they've opened up ground intelligence officer, light armored vehicle repair ordnance vehicle maintenance chief, the army m-1 abrams tank maintainers, multiple launch rocket system crew member artillery officer. the navy has opened all eight enlisted submarine ratings and the 77 classification codes that go with those ratings. all significant changes in and of themselves. one of the chairman's guiding principles was to ensure service members are set up for success

as the general said, with viable career paths. so not only are we opening the positions and occupations, we're identifying and opening all of the schools the skill identifiers and the professional development pass. it as a wholistic effort. so, yes, approximately 240,000 positions are still closed. most of those reside in the closed occupations, again, infantry, armor artillery, and, of course special operations. but we knew from the beginning those would be the most difficult to review and we also fully expected they would be the last to be addressed. the services special operations command in the department as a whole are on track to announce the final decisions on opening or integration of those all 240,000 of those remaining closed positions or any approved exceptions to policy on or about january 1, 2016, in accordance with the rescission memo. so as we move toward the end of the year each service and special operations command is working to conclude their various doctrine training,

education, facilities and policy study and analysis all again part of that deliberate process. lastly, each service continues to work with their various scientific and research agencies as they review and validate their occupational standards. and as you've seen in the news each of them are nearing completion of their associated study efforts. most notably the marine corps's ground combat element integrated task force. they're currently finishing up their work at 29 palms california and they will be moving to their final phase in camp pendleton and in bridgeport mountain warfare training center to do the amphibious and mountain warfare sections of that assessment. and, of course, the ongoing army ranger assessment due to conclude around the june time frame. so while the services have taken slightly different approach which is i know you're going to have a panel to look at that later this afternoon -- i'm sorry, i've lost my place. sorry about that. the end result is going to be

the same. all occupational standards will and must be validated prior to final decisions. i think that's an important point and i want to point that out. the services are reviewing all of the occupational standards not just the occupations that are currently closed. it's given us the opportunity to really look at our standards. at our training pipelines to look at it all with a fresh eye and to have those difficult conversations that were never possible because of that outdated policy barrier that we used to have. so through this we expect to learn a lot, possibly even more about our existing forces and trading pipelines as we will about gender integration. validating the standards regardless of the gender of the service member performing them will only enhance the quality, the readiness and the overall effectiveness of our force. so in conclusion a constant for the department since 2013 is that this effort, again, is not about raising or lowering standards but rather ensuring that we have the right standards

and the right policies. this coupled with expanding the talent pool from which we can recruit and assign will help ensure the continued success of our forces and our individual service members. i, like you, look forward to the end of this year. but this will continue long after january 1, 2016 as we recruit, assess, train and grow those leaders of tomorrow. some say that we're going to slow, some say that we're going too fast. we think that we've got it about right. our goal is to take a measured and responsible approach, again to have those hard conversations and to really look closely at this issue. and i'm comfortable that we have succeeded there. as i mentioned in the beginning, this is a historic effort and senior leaders across the department of defense recognize that. they are personally engaged they are constantly talking to each other and they are leading on this effort. and so again, thank you for having us and we look forward to your questions. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much. we have about 25 minutes for questions. i would like to group them by two or three. please introduce yourself and who would like to start off, please. >> hi there, i'm anna with the "christian science monitor" and i just got back from ranger school this past weekend so watching some of the first women go through and now there are eight remaining and so in talking to some of the rangers who were running this school and some of the senior military leader leadership, even about the women who have not made it through so of school one week ago today there are eight left and they said the ones they talked to as they were leaving and the ones they watched, even as they went out of the school that they would be proud to sirve witherve with them on the

battlefield anywhere and they would love to see them come back to ranger school because such a small percentage of people who go through ranger school make it through the first time. so what i'm wondering is what are the criteria the osd is going to use to allow an exception to policy? an exemption. saying are women going to be allowed to be rangers or not. is it going to be based on their success? i mean, you know, given that a lot of these guys need a second third, fourth try to get through ranger school? >> any other, yes, please. >> good afternoon, i'm jeanette heaney, a mane marine corps reserve lieutenant colonel. i have extensive experience in units without any fellow female officers and definitely no female superior officers so i have a question about one of the terms that's been thrown around, the critical mass or sufficient cadre. i was wondering if y'all could offer a definition of that or how it might be universally

applied and if there's been some kind of information recently that's brought the importance of that to light because obviously it hasn't really been something that's been employed within d.o.d. before. >> let's start maybe with these first two questions. so it's about the criteria in terms of exceptions and the issue of critical mass. >> i'll start out on the -- on exception to policy but first of all thank you for going out and participating in the ranger day and thank those who went out for the marine corps version as well. i think it was very enlightning and i thought we got pretty good coverage and i think they were fairly transparent in who they talked to, and getting the word out and to show the attitudes of the men and women going through the course. so thanks for that. as you aptly pointed out, less than 50% make it through the first gates of the ranger school. we're sitting at a 43% successful rate for women, is 48% successful rate for men. that is within historical norms

for the course so we are pretty proud of the eighting that are still in there the game there. so you ask about what we're going to do with that. what ranger school is doing, it is identifying validating assessing the core tasking that folks do as a ranger. that will allow us to then baseline on the standards that are required, one, through the pre-testing, there was a preranger phase as you probably know and for application throughout the mos, the occupation skills. the data will be used as a reference for the general neutral standards. it won't be the be all end on as whether or not they go through. as you point out, there are several phases and if you get eliminated from a phase there's an opportunity later to come back and to retry and we certainly hope the few women that have gone through that may want to retry in the future to get the ranger tabitha they would. so because of that, there's no

penalty for it we're just excited about the women that went through. >> i guess i would just add so on your question regarding the exception, there is no simple answer to that. so as laid out in the secretary and the chairman's memo, so any request for an exception to policy which would be to keep a position or occupation closed has to have a rigorous justification and based on the skills and knowledge and abilities needed to do the job. i think what i will tell you, it will be multilayered. it's not a simple binary answer and it will be thoroughly reviewed and discussed across the department before any decision is made there. >> what about the issue of critical mass? is that important? >> thanks for the question on critical mass. that has been some thoughts. each service will come back with their employment station plans by occupational specialty. so we certainly don't want to blanket numberover -- put against a specialty because it's all going to be different, whether they're in the field or

out, whether it's on a ship or two officers four enlisted, the submarine piece will be different than the surface ship, it will be different than a marine corps infantry unit. different than a combat unit. but the important thing is that we do have a structure there. as we have learned through previous lessons learned, we need to have a support structure there so there are strategy there is whether we place women with similar occupational specialties in the unit, whether they're co-located with similar occupancy or just leadership being there i have personally watched a woman crash and burn because she didn't have the support structure necessary because we moved out a little too quick this was 20 years ago in' t 93 but it was important we have the structure there. so when we come forward with the operations that are previously

closed they'll have deliberate implementation plans that will be evaluated every step of the way to ensure women have the support they need to do well. if they fail because we haven't placed the right support, it will be very hard for us to get motivated volunteers to follow that same path. so we want to do it right the first time so that we can continue to generate the folks that want to come in behind them and do well. >> do you want to adding? >> let's go for a second round. yes, please. >> my name is annie clie man, i'm a reservist in the air force, assigned to the air force special operations school and i was also part of the csd-3. my question is when i was assigned to air force special operations school i was able to work with some of the researchers from the joint social operations university who were looking at these implementation plans and part of the study as they mentioned,

cultural studies. so what exactly does that mean? what kind of data has come out of those studies and somehow that being used in the implementation plans going forward? >> lady in the back? >> my name is lisa dolza, a contractor with the d.o.d. office of wear care policy. i have a question regarding the best practices mentioned earlier. you mentioned open communication and proper training and i was hoping that you could elaborate on that and what you found with best practices that might be institutionalized to help support success in the future. >> let's go with these two first. >> so why don't i -- i'll try and tackle the studies question first. so from the beginning even in the 2011/2012 time frame we envisioned that the services, all the services in special operations command would want to do studies surveys to try and identify where the issues are. again, we've got -- as the general said we have done this before and there's a lot of

lessons learned from before. so the army did a lot of surveys initially to kind of find out where people perhaps had misperceptions buts, where there might be issues that might need to be addressed and so socom they wanted to do a study given their unique needs and the way they operate in small team, they wanted to do studies to understand how this would impact the special operations community and how they could develop plans to best implement it. so that's the reason behind it. >> could i ask you, are some of the results of these studies going to be public at some point? >> at some point yes. but that was one of the -- we have not made any of them public yet because, of course, the services, the chiefs, the commander of special operations will use the results of those studies, one, to develop mitigation strategies if they identify something that needs to be addressed so that they can address it and make sure we're successful. then, of course, two to use those studies to help inform any

final recommendations they may make to the secretary. >> i'd like to address the training and communications piece which is key. so thank you for keying in on that. that's a key part of the implementation plans that the services need to bring forward for every one of the specialties. and i say that because first of all as we spoke about all of the standards are going to be gender-neutral standards. that's not just focussed on the occupations that are closed right now, but all of them. so as we produce those by the end of september, each serviceman and woman has to be trained to that standard. and they will help us better identify where these special areas are where people may need pre-assessment training like the ranger schools where we do pre-assessment work to make sure that folks understand what the physical activities of the course require so they can be more successful when they come to the course. so that's a key part of that

piece. when it comes to the communications, clearly communications is a big part of our trust. we need to explain why the gender no federal standards, how we're going to ensure everybody meets those standards, both men and women, why they're necessary for the occupation in the first place because there's some question as to you know is it really the right task that should be done in these stan darz -- standards, in the different moss, and by communicating that more effectively than we have, this will help us build the trust for both men and women to continue down that pipeline. so appreciate that. that's an important part of the implementation plan. thank you. >> yes please. >> hi, sue fulton, the chair of the u.s. military academy void of visitors west point grad, former signal officer. obviously we are dealing with a question of critical mass, too and i want to go back to that because i want to follow up deeper. we talk about critical mass or sufficient cadre. i was surprised to hear you say

you feel like it would be different depending on whether you're talking about a ship or infantry platoon or whatever the unit. how do you define what critical mass would be. is there a common definition where you say this is the best operating capability of the unit? and sufficient cadres of course is a different question. i guess i would understand how we're going about defining those. i have a better understanding of how we're going about defining standards for the mission versus standards for the men even though there's work to be done at least we have a way to define that but i'd like to hear more definition around that. thanks. >> please, go ahead if you want to. >> so maybe to expand upon what the general already said, we do believe that it would be different based on the requirements of the services and based on the requirements of the unit. for instance, what works on a ship may not be what's needed for an army unit or for a marine corps unit or for a small

special operations unit. so we think it's important to allow the services to define cadre. i think the important thing is as you said leadership at the point of insertion and ensuring that we have the right support structure there. there isn't going to be a singular definition a one size fits all definition that works for all units and all services. >> let me also add that -- if i wasn't clear on the first go we will stride checkpoints, we're going to watch this very closely to see if in those different specialties they've done the right things, the right support structures and we'll measure those structures and if it's sufficient, great, if it's not sufficient we need to make changes. so just because they say it's going to take two females on a sub today doesn't mean that that's going to hold a year from now. so, again, this is not going to stop on january 1, we'll continue to do in-stride assessments. great question. we want them to succeed. >> any other questions?

yes. let me ask you a question and i think then afterwards you will have to go. with the studies that have been done thus far, what has been some of the biggest surprises positive or negative and what do you see as some of the biggest challenges moving forward? >> well i often use a story -- well biggest surprise. so we were reviewing and validating the standards and so we said we have standards, right, so why do you have to go through all this and, again it was to review to make sure that they're current and i use the often -- there's a -- historically the way airborne school has been a 45-pound pack weight. so we always thought well, that's 45 pounds since world war ii because that's the weight of the ammunition or how much water or what an air born soldier has to carry in world war ii. but when the army and training

and doctrine command started to pull that string and look at what was the standard and why what they found was 45 pounds was the minimum weight a soldier needed to have below them as they were jumping out of the airplane. anything less than 45 pounds would fly up and get tangled in the risers. so that was a classic example of 45 pounds had nothing do with being an infantryman and it had everything to do with falling out of an airplane. so as an sample of the standard we had been for many years that everybody accepted as the necessary standard but perhaps it wasn't the right standard. >> do you have a good example like that? >> well, that's a great example and that's the reason i don't jump out of airplanes, by the way. [ laughter ] i think that one of the challenges to address that other half is that all throughout this process we've got to maintain the trust of not only the

service member ss but the public. to do that we need to continue our communication, we have to have the right implementation plans and we just need to -- taking our motivated volunteers and helping them be successful. not that they need a help up or handout, we need to make sure everything's in place for them to do what they do best. and when you hear the interviews of the ladies out of marine corps school and the rangers this weekend i am so inspired that despite all this they are excited to be there el they will make a difference. they are paving the way and our job is to cement in the right policies so that they can continue down a successful career path and become our senior leaders of tomorrow. that's our biggest challenge. >> thank you i think indeed communication is going to be key both for future soldiers as well as the public at large and in that sense i think it's also going to be crucially important

to have some of the studies and reports being published and so that is a transparent process. i was also very happy to see that the presumption -- to hear you say the presumption is that every position has to be open and i think on that note i would like to thank you for coming here. i hope you will join us for maybe a next event and tell us how progress is going on this aree. that thank you so much, please join me. [ applause ] >> we're going to do a quick panel change here. >> i'm nancy campbell from the national women's law center and i, too want to thank our sponsoring organization and all the co-sponsors for having this

important conference and discussion today. our panel is to talk about gender-neutral occupational standards and i think we heard two important pieces from the previous panel that it would be wise for us all to remember. one is that the standard setting process is for all the occupations in the services not just for combat positions and not just for ground combat positions the sect is that the purpose isn't to lower standards or raise standards but to get the right standards which, of course, could involve some different standards and attacks from some people that they've been lowered or raised. so it's important to as our previous panel said, get the standards right and that's what we're going to tack about tote. i'm going stewart a little bit of the sort of legal background on standard setting in our

country because i think that secretary panetta and chairman dempsey when they issued their directive in january of 2013 which said that there had to be validated gender-neutral standards before integration proceeded were doing so against the backdrop of the law in this area and were recognizing not only that integration wouldn't and couldn't bt be a success unless you were measuring everybody by the same standards and making sure that those were the right standards. so that it wouldn't be appropriate, for example, to measure a woman's ability to participate in any ground combat occupation or position against a standard that hadn't been validated even for the men who were currently holding the position. so in the civilian world the --

most of the law in this area has been made under title vii of the civil rights act which is the law that prohibits discrimination employment on the basis of sex as well as several other classifications. the important point that has been made in the case law under title 7 is that any standard that has a differential impact on women and men must be shown to be validly able to predict job performance and this has been true in my occupational cludeing many non-traditional occupations such as police departments and firefighters. and turning to physical standards since that's where a lot of the debate is concentrating now, even though again, i repeat, that the

directive from the secretary was that there must be occupational standards for every mos and that means not just physical but mental or any other standards that are validedly related to the performance of that occupation. and what the court have looked to under title 7 is that there has to be a pretty stringent and rigorous scientific process in accomplishing what those standards should be for example, they've invalidated physical tests for personnel selections when the required test just measured general physical ability. for example, and i'm quoting now from very specific case, pushups, situps and pullups have generally not be sufficient to show that that is an appropriate test for a particular job

performance. instead they have required that the test that has been articulated be established to have a sufficient content validity, meaning that it has to be actually representative of actual job behaviors. for example, there was a case that invalidated a test of a police department that required people who were trying to qualify to be a cop to run around a track for a mile to sigh if they could complete it within a certain period of time. that was invalidated because they couldn't show that that was something most police officers had to do. instead, most police officers when they were in pursuit of a subject -- that was what the test was argued to be the validation for -- only had to run short distances. running a mile was so unusual that they said that it wasn't an appropriate test for determining the qualifications for that job.

so generally to pass muster what an organization that is employing a test has to show is usually that they've actually gone out looked at what people do in the field in that job and determine what the tasks are that are part of the actual recurring recurring taxes that one has to do on the job. so if it's an outlier task like running a mile, that's typically not sufficient. then after they've done the observations in the field they generally have to show that they've developed the -- a measure, something to measure these tasks by that is representative of what the individual has to do in the field. so it's okay to have proxy tests, but the proxy tests have to be ones that do fairly predict what the individual would have to do in the job when she or he had the job.

and usually they have to have some kind of a score system that shows that there's a certain neutrality to how people are measured and this can fairly and rely reliably assess whether one is passing or failing. and for example if you have a pass/fail test and you say anybody below a certain score can't get the job, then you have to be able to show that that lower score is related and very consistent with the minimum requirements that you have for the job so it's fairly rigorous not only in how you set the standard, but then in how you define the tasks that can be used as a proxy for the standards now, having said all that, it's the sort of final step is obviously that you have to measure people individually. you can't measure people as a group. you zant saycan't say that as a group

these people can't do the job. as a gender these people can't do the job. as a race these people can't do the job but rather you have to measure people for the job on an individual basis. now, having said that, title 7, of course, doesn't apply to the united states military in terms of its military jobs, so why am i even talking about all this case law? i'm talking about it for two reasons. one is that i think that were there to be a legal challenge to a standard or to the fact that someone was disqualified from a job because the standard wasn't the appropriate standard, i think that the courts would definitely look to the law under title 7 because that's where most of the standard setting law has been developed in this country, and so it's highly

relevant as to whether that standard has been set appropriately or applied appropriately to a particular individual. and there's a second reason as well, and that is that as many of you know, in the ndaa for fiscal year 2015, there was language included on the standard setting process specifically in the military and specifically under the directive of secretary panetta and chairman dempsey, and that language says that the secretary of defense must ensure that the gender neutral occupational standards, and here i'm quoting, accurately predict performance of actual regular and recurring duties of a military occupation and are applied equitably to measure individual capabilities. so we have law in this area as a backdrop under title 7 where there has been a great deal of experience in setting

occupational standards and applying them, and we have a specific directive in the ndaa which essentially replicates what is the title 7 standard. so now against that background we're going to hear from our terrific panel here today to talk about what is happening in the standard-setting process, what should be happening in the standard-setting process, and what has happened as part of the standard-setting process and i assume is ongoing in canada where they have very successfully integrated women into their armed forces and have a great deal of experience in this area. we're going to start with -- i'm going to introduce all of you and say what you're going to do so i can stop talking for a while. we're going to start with hearing from ellen haring, who is a retired army colonel and senior fellow at women international security, and as you heard been very actively leading its combat integration initiative. she's going to talk about the

army's and marine corps' efforts to set standards. and then we'll hear from sue jaenen. and everybody's bios are more complete so i'm going to summarize. she's the manager for human resources for the canadian special forces command and a former member of the canadian armed forces. she's been very involved in the development and ongoing implementation of canada's occupational standards and the tests to measure those standards. and then we're going to hear from carolyn becraft who many of us have known and worked with for a very long time, and she has a particular perspective here from her time both in the army and in -- as the assistant secretary of the navy for personnel and readiness in a former life, and she's going to talk about -- give us a little bit of her overview of what the process should be, not only right now but going forward. so, ellen. >> thank you. so as always, the devil is in

the details, and certainly it's definitely in the details of standards setting in the military and, of course, all the services, but i'm going to talk about the army and the marine corps simply because we have the preponderance of the positions and i can't talk about so com because i have no idea what they're doing. i would love to talk about them or have somebody up here to talk about their standard setting process but haven't managed to crack that nut yet. what's the army doing? the army had -- has take an very deliberate -- charted a pretty deliberate course. they assigned tray dock to lead the effort. they then reached out to subordinate organizations.

they brought in their research scientists and they tasked them with setting the standards, and i believe that the majority, almost all their focus, has been on the closed occupations. i don't think they've gone back and looked at all the other occupations that are already open even though that has been previously -- they were supposed to do that. so the research team started out by going to the proponent's school. they asked the proponent schools, okay, tell us what your standards are, and they got sets of standards from the proponent schools. they conducted a number of surveys, interviews, focus groups, and then they took those occupational standards to the field across the u.s. they went to a number of units, and they tested the units with the standards that they had been given, and what they found was that only about 60% of the soldiers in these units that were out there and supposedly qualified could actually pass the standards that they had been

told were their standards. so the research team came back and said these can't be your standards if only 60% of the soldiers out there are meeting the standards. what they did, my understanding what they did, they said you've got to have -- show us standards that 90% of your soldiers are actually meeting. they readjusted the standards. the research team also did some research -- field research, watching soldiers actually going through their missions, and readjusted the standards to the point where approximately i understand now 90% of qualified soldiers can actually meet those standards. and last month they opened combat engineers. so it's the first of the occupational -- ground combat occupational standards to be

open. combat engineers was opened last month. field artillery is supposed to be opened next followed by armor and infantry. now, combat engineers is -- we're about six months behind. we're supposed to open in the fall. artillery was supposed to be opening this spring. so everything seems to be a little bit further behind, but hopefully if standards are set now, they can happen on a rolling basis. having said that, there's some problems with even the approach we've gone to with this 90% can pass the standard. first of all, it's a normative standard based on men that are out there in the field. it's not really a gender neutral. they haven't gone back in the way i would like to see the army go back and examine every single one of the physical requirements that an occupation might require and do it with both men and women involved because women often accomplish the same physical requirement in a different way than a man might. so we've got -- what they've done is provided normative standards to what men do and 90% of men can do, and that's the

standards as i understand it today. now, if the research team were here, maybe they would say something different, but i watched and listened to the research team lecture on this and i think that's pretty solidly what they've done. >> so they lowered standards for men. >> now, what they haven't talked about -- what the army hasn't talked about is special forces branch. special forces branch is an army branch. it's not special operations command's branch, but what the army has done is given responsibility -- i wouldn't say the army has done that. it was done in the original implementation plans, was to sell so com, so com's responsible for determining when the special ops community occupations will be open and how they'll be opened. so i have no idea when special forces, who is setting their standards, how they're being

set, and when they will be opened. however, one caveat with that, is what we've already heard today which is army ranger school. the 75th ranger regiment is a unit within so com, but we are -- the army has moved forward with this one-time assessment of women at ranger school. we have many units in the army that have rangers. so we have -- we, i say because i was in the army for 30 years. we've gone forward with doing this one-time assessment of army rangers with the caveat saying but they won't be assigned to the 75th ranger regiment because that's a so com decision at some point. and as, you know, everybody is watching this very closely. the eight women have finally made it through the first week, the hardest week of ranger school, but the question that i have is what's the assessment and i think this was kind of gotten to in the last question, what's this assessment for? will they determine if none of

these eight women in this small select group makes it that we're going to keep ranger school closed to all women forever? so i don't understand the assessment. what i would have liked to have seen was maybe the assessment was to look at gender neutral standards for ranger school but i think that the women are just being expected to meet the existing standards which are very high and well set and clearly published, so that's not necessarily problematic as long as the standards that were set are actually job related. so that's the army. now, the marine corps and the army have taken very -- kind of charted very different paths. they're different services and they have approached this i think with a different mindset, but i don't want to evaluate -- i'm just going to tell you what th