During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) asked Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Michael Rigas to define "woke."
00:00With that, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Jackson, is recognized for five minutes.
00:06Thank you so much, Chairman.
00:07Thank you so much for your time and coming out today.
00:10To start this series of questions, I'd like to ask you, could you please furnish for us
00:14a definition of woke?
00:16What does woke mean?
00:18Well, sir, I mean, I think in popular parlance, a lot of people have a lot of different definitions
00:25for that word.
00:27Your definition, please.
00:28I don't know that I have a definition.
00:31Okay.
00:32Do you find something particularly offensive about diversity, equity, and inclusion?
00:36Do you think it should be illegal?
00:38I think how it's been applied, sir, seems to have been in violation of American civil rights
00:44law.
00:45Okay.
00:45Well, that's incorrect.
00:46But let me get on to my other questioning.
00:48This administration has made no secret of its hostility towards diversity, equity, and inclusion
00:54programs, shutting them down, not just at the State Department, but across the federal government.
01:00That's your prerogative, as you know.
01:02Even if many of us believe, as a co-equal branch of government, we believe that it undermines
01:07our national security and weakens our diplomatic core.
01:10But let's talk about the implications of your obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion
01:14over diplomacy.
01:16As you well know, federal and foreign and civil service officers rotate assignments.
01:22A career official could have landed in a job focused on increasing recruitment that was required
01:28by law and retention of a diverse workforce through a standard assignment in a general cycle, which
01:35is hardly a political assignment.
01:38In fact, working to ensure that the department's workforce reflects the America it represents
01:42sounds very patriotic to me.
01:45It's an asset that the United States has.
01:47I want to ask you, before this massive firing took place, what safeguards were in place to
01:52protect career officers from being targeted for removal simply because they served in a
01:58portfolio this administration now seems politically undesirable?
02:03So the functions, the offices and bureaus that were eliminated, some offices were eliminated,
02:11some offices were combined that were duplicative.
02:13But what was the criteria?
02:14Overlapping functions.
02:15If they were not sort of a core foreign policy mission of the United States, that's, I think,
02:23one of the number one criteria.
02:24Or if it was an office that no longer was relevant.
02:29All right.
02:30Well, let me go forward, if you don't mind, in the interest of time that we have because
02:33I was getting a bit of word selling, couldn't figure out what you were saying.
02:36I know you to be an upstanding and lawful-abiding citizen.
02:39Section 5403 of the 2022 NDAA strengthens recruitment of underrepresented groups, mandating outreach to universities, employee affinity groups, and expanding paid student internships, among other actions.
02:55But now under Secretary Rubio's leadership, which is substantially different than Senator Rubio's leadership, employee affinity groups are not allowed to meet outreach efforts or pause.
03:07And critical recruitment programs like the Payne Fellowship have now been terminated.
03:12When you talk about replacing diversity, equity, inclusion, has anyone been removed from the Franklin Fellowship program in the State Department?
03:19I am not familiar with the membership of the different programs at the department and who's in them and who's not.
03:28Okay.
03:28Well, they have not.
03:29I hope you would look into that next time.
03:32Can you tell us more about the Franklin Fellowship program on why that program has been protected and preserved?
03:38Isn't that a specialty interest group?
03:40Sir, I could get back to you with information on that.
03:44My understanding is these affinity groups are sort of employee-generated.
03:48I'm being very specific about Franklin, the one group that has expanded during this time period.
03:53My understanding is that's an affinity group that is founded by employees and whose membership is managed by those employees themselves.
04:03It's not an official State Department organization.
04:05It's my understanding.
04:06I might be wrong, but I don't think it is.
04:07Your understanding is incorrect at this point.
04:09I hope you would refresh yourself on that.
04:10Section 504 of that bill requires that the Secretary of State to reward and advance officials that promote diversity and inclusion.
04:20But under Secretary Rubin, the department has abolished the performance evaluation criteria.
04:25Do you agree with that?
04:26That was feedback we also got from a number of career Foreign Service officers that they felt that their language skills, their Foreign Service skills were not being adequately considered for promotion and that...
04:39So I would ask you, why are you not carrying out the law?
04:41It's real simple.
04:42I've got a very basic line to follow the law.
04:46This is the law.
04:47Will you respect the law?
04:49Well, absolutely, sir.
04:50If you want to let me know which particular law you think is not being faithfully executed, I'd be happy to look into that.
