NASA needs sharper diversity focus to boost…

NASA needs sharper diversity focus to boost representation, audit finds

four astronauts standing in spacesuits against a dark background

NASA's diversity statistics are staying much the same despite a decade of efforts to increase representation, a new audit finds.

NASA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found at most a 2% increase in representation in groups such as women, African-Americans and Hispanics, a new audit revealed on April 20.

"Despite support from agency leaders and multiple initiatives to increase diversity, we found NASA has made little progress in increasing the representation of women and minorities in its civilian workforce or leadership ranks," OIG officials wrote in the report.

Only two of NASA's research centers have increased African-American representation markedly, while others have made small gains overall, the auditors said, noting that "few gains" in diversity have been made at the senior-official level as well. Overall, the agency has 18,000 civil service employees, with 35% being women and 30% African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic or "multiethnic."

NASA, like many other government agencies, has been striving to correct decades of discrimination against certain groups. Examples include the Lavender Scare of the 1950s and 1960s against LGBTQ+ people, failing to fly women astronauts until 1983 (more than 20 years after the first males), or initially not acknowledging the role of "Hidden Figures" African-American mathematicians and engineers in the early space program.

The OIG traces NASA's efforts to foster diversity and inclusion at least to a 2010 decision to include this priority in strategic decision-making. Then-President Barack Obama issued an executive order the following year, in 2011, for all government agencies "to develop specific diversity and inclusion plans by March 2012," which NASA performed, the OIG found.

NASA has been updating its strategy every few years since, and in 2020 inclusion was placed as the agency's fifth core value along with safety, integrity, teamwork and excellence, among other efforts to improve representation. (LGBTQ+ statistics were not referenced in the report, but such employees are discussed under the "equity" section of NASA's definition of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.)

Sally Ride was the first U.S. woman in space. Posthumously, it was also announced she was the first known LGBTQ+ astronaut in space. (Image credit: NASA)

But all of this work has not resulted in meaningful changes in group composition, the OIG said. As such, the report issued seven recommendations for improvement and said that NASA officials were responsive to these ideas.

The first six initiatives target hiring and promotion, professional development, mentoring, a "barrier analysis" to see why certain groups are facing issues, creating trackable metrics to see how well diversity initiatives are performing, tracking hiring trends and including an "official or organization" to coordinate stakeholders in diversity work.

NASA appointed Stephen Shih (left) as the agency's first diversity ambassador and Elaine Ho (right) as the next associate administrator for the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. (Image credit: NASA)