During a House Intelligence Committee hearing on March 9th, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines spoke about the importance of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in intelligence agencies.  The meeting was called to discuss global threats.

Representative Andre Carson brought up the issue of workforce development and the underrepresentation of minorities in American intelligence communities. asking Haines and other panelists what their organizations were doing to improve diversity, how they plan to retain diverse workforces, as well as whether the intelligence community needs to devote more resources to professional development to tackle the issue.

DNI Haines statement after taking the oath of office: https://t.co/2cCp8uH1FO pic.twitter.com/FGIXPsxRBE

— Office of the DNI (@ODNIgov) January 22, 2021

Haines acknowledged the need for increased diversity and highlighted recent budget requests aimed at boosting the presence of minorities in the intelligence community.

Haines stressed the importance of reliable data to ensure accountability for diversity and inclusion efforts and highlighted the lack of Hispanic and Latino representation in senior leadership positions in particular.

“In the senior leadership [of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,] I look at the percentage of Hispanic and Latinos for example. It is, as you know, a little bit more than three percent, and that clearly does not reflect the country… We are also working across a range of other issues that we’ve seen to promote recruiting across the country in a variety of different communities to ensure that we’re reaching folks that don’t normally come to the IC or know about the IC,” she said.

Had the pleasure to meet with the Director of National Intelligence of the United States Avril Haines in Tallinn yesterday to discuss Russia’s war in #Ukraine and the changed security situation in Europe. pic.twitter.com/lJ1mquoCqx

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) May 14, 2022

Haines added that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are areas that the intelligence community needs to focus more resources and efforts on, and noted recent proposals and budget requests that reflect this.