A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Every year, the State Department's union hands out awards for diplomats who provide constructive policy dissent. A conservative group of current and former diplomats is offering a different incentive - rewards to employees who fight DEI and help with deportations. Here's NPR's Michele Kelemen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: This year, the Ben Franklin Fellowship is proud to partner with the U.S. Department of State.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Here's the video announcing $25,000 in prizes for State Department employees.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The U.S. National Interest Diplomacy Awards.
KELEMEN: Phillip Linderman is a retired senior foreign service officer and co-founder of the conservative Ben Franklin Fellowship. He says he wants to change the culture at the State Department, which he believes was too left-leaning, and the awards is one way to do it. One is called the Martin Luther King Jr. Meritocracy Award, and Linderman says it will go to an employee who's rolling back what he calls a woke DEI agenda.
PHILLIP LINDERMAN: We believe very much in the - and this is a very respectful point of view - in the standard that Martin Luther King set, which was meritocracy, a color-blind society.
KELEMEN: Linderman says he did not reach out to King's family or foundation for approval to use MLK's name, nor did the Ben Franklin Fellowship reach out to other foundations representing other historical figures its awards are named after. The Free Speech Award, for instance, is named for Thomas Jefferson.
LINDERMAN: We think that free speech is an important value, particularly in Western Europe, where there is very much a cancel culture mentality that dominates in many European institutions.
KELEMEN: Trump administration officials at the department have focused on free speech in Western European countries and shut down an office that was set up to counter disinformation from Russia and China. The office that used to help refugees around the world is now focused on remigration, that is, getting immigrants to return to their countries. The Ben Franklin Fellowship has named an award for that in honor of Dwight Eisenhower, the president who deported Mexicans in the 1950s and used a racist name for that effort, Operation Wetback.
LISA HELLER: It's very unusual, I think, to take historical figures in that way and try to attach particular items to them.
KELEMEN: That's Lisa Heller, a former career diplomat who's with the American Foreign Service Association, the State Department Union. She says General Eisenhower has a broader historical record of serving America.
HELLER: He was the leader in World War II. He was the U.S. president during the Cold War period. So to take one particular event that happened during the presidency and then name an award after them seems to be creating a political narrative that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
KELEMEN: The American Foreign Service Association, meanwhile, is handing out its awards in October, mostly named for former State Department officials. But Heller says fewer employees are seeking recognition at a time when they feel they could be sidelined for political reasons.
HELLER: We are seeing fewer nominations for awards in the last couple of years. That's for sure, particularly in the dissent Awards.
KELEMEN: She says many officers may also not want to be associated with the rival conservative Ben Franklin Fellowship Awards. But Linderman, the co-founder of that group, says they are getting interest and receiving applications until the end of November. Though the video announcing the award says they are in partnership with the State Department, the department says it is not providing any funding.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAMMAL HANDS' "CHASER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
