Federal Overhaul is a multipart series that explores the impact of the Trump administration’s restructuring of the federal government on Black communities.
Pamela L. Spratlen knows all too well how elusive diversity has long been within the U.S. Foreign Service.
Her father, as a young man, applied to join the Foreign Service. But this was in the 1950s, at the height of Jim Crow, and racially discriminatory federal hiring policies shut that door. He went on instead to make history as the first Black faculty member at Western Washington State College, now Western Washington University.
Over the past half century, the U.S. Department of State — the primary steward of the Foreign Service — has sought to expand the ranks of the country’s diplomatic corps through programs and fellowships that weren’t yet offered when Spratlen was navigating the entry process in the late 1980s. But that commitment to diversity is now in doubt.
The Trump administration in December recalled nearly 30 career diplomats from their ambassadorial posts; at least two are Black, according to a Capital B analysis. Those affected were instructed to vacate their posts by the middle of January. Because Black Americans have long been underrepresented in ambassadorial roles, these recalls stand out beyond routine personnel changes.
But former ambassadors and other diplomats say that their concern goes far beyond the hollowing out of senior posts. At a moment when the U.S. is growing its travel ban list and isolating itself on the international stage, they caution that the move is part of a wider pattern that could send a troubling signal about who is — and is not — valued in the Foreign Service. This could discourage Black Americans from entering the diplomatic corps at any level, and raises questions about the long-term impact on U.S. foreign policy.
“It’s very difficult to know what to say to anyone,” Spratlen, who was the first Black U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, told Capital B. “Everyone has been thrown into confusion about what the future of the State Department’s employment at the level of the Foreign Service will look like.”
With 13 countries affected, Africa is the continent that will feel the brunt of the recalls. It’s followed by Asia with six, Europe with four, and the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and the Americas with two each. Vernelle Trim FitzPatrick, the U.S. ambassador to Gabon, and Jessica Davis Ba, the U.S. ambassador to the Ivory Coast, are Black.
Those affected by the recalls wouldn’t normally end their duties only because a new administration is in power.
All ambassadors, whether they’re career diplomats or political appointees, receive sign-off from the president. The tradition has been that when a new administration arrives, they submit a pro forma resignation letter. It’s typically been the case that political appointees’ resignations are accepted, while career diplomats complete their terms, which usually last about three years.
The administration’s directive could effectively end the careers of many ambassadors. They have just 90 days to secure new positions within the department — a challenging task given the cuts already shaking up the agency and the competitive nature of such appointments.
The recalls follow the State Department’s hiring of new Foreign Service members last fall and winter. The administration said that it was overhauling the rules governing the process to focus on loyalty to the administration and also to scale back diversity policies that had been created to support minority candidates.
The State Department hasn’t commented on the specifics of the recalls or its decision to reverse policies that boost diversity. But it has broadly defended these actions.
“This is a standard process in any administration,” an agency spokesperson told Capital B in a statement. “An ambassador is a personal representative of the President, and it is the President’s right to ensure that he has individuals in these countries who advance the America First agenda.”
It’s tough to hear about these changes and not be concerned about the direction that the diplomatic corps is going in, said Lisa Heller, the director of professional policy issues at the American Foreign Service Association, the union for Foreign Service officers.
Comprehensive data on diversity in the Foreign Service can be hard to come by. But a 2021 Council on Foreign Relations brief found that only five of the 189 ambassadors serving during the first Trump administration were Black — a figure that marked a U-turn after years of slow improvement. The brief also found that this lack of representation was systemic, affecting not just senior posts but every level of the Foreign Service.
Similarly, a 2022 Howard University report found that, out of the more than 2,300 U.S. ambassadors in the country’s history, Black women have held just 2% of those posts. Against this backdrop, the administration’s recent removal of Black women takes on added weight.
“The State Department has been trying for many years now to make sure that its workforce and diplomatic force, as they say, look like America,” Heller told Capital B. “And until the end of the Biden administration, that was a priority when we were selecting people for leadership positions overseas.”
Over the past year, much has changed.
Heller said that the current administration, on many counts, has demonstrated that racial diversity isn’t a priority.
“You have to be concerned not only about what this move does to the careers of the women and people of color who are being called back and who are probably facing the end of their career, but also about who will be sent out in their place,” she said. “It’s very unlikely that this administration will show that same concern for diversity.”
Additionally, she and others fear that the episode risks chilling interest in public service, sending a discouraging signal to a new generation of candidates — especially people of color — and undercutting efforts to build a more diverse diplomatic corps.
In a January statement, the Association of Black American Ambassadors echoed Heller’s warnings regarding shifting Foreign Service policies, situating them within a broader history of exclusion and progress. The group, of which Spratlen is a representative, highlights the enduring contributions of Black Americans who, through presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, have served as U.S. ambassadors and shaped U.S. diplomacy.
“The challenge is not just with promotions and personnel, but also foreign policy,” the association said. “The December 22, 2025, recall of about 30 United States foreign service career Ambassadors from their posts weakens the United States’ ability to promote U.S. national interests and for all U.S. diplomats to be the first line of defense for the nation.”
U.S. messaging “undercut by our actions”
What’s happening isn’t only an erosion of diversity initiatives — but a dismantling of diplomatic capability, according to Charles A. Ray, the former U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe.
He recalled how he spent his first two diplomatic assignments in China in the early 1980s. He was the only Black American at the consulate, and he said that explaining to the Chinese that minority groups have a vital role to play in society resonated differently coming from him.
“This isn’t to disparage the competency of my majority ethnic group colleagues,” Ray, who also speaks on behalf of the Association of Black American Ambassadors, told Capital B. “But let’s face it: If you’re in a country — like Thailand or Cambodia — and you’re a blond-haired and blue-eyed white person talking about how to treat minority groups, that message doesn’t get through quite as well.”
This is especially true, he added, when people have access to the news.
Autocracies such as Iran and China have seized on the police killings of Black Americans — and the protests that have ensued — to accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy when it comes to racial justice. Both countries have pointed to these incidents to blunt criticism of their human rights records, arguing that the U.S. lacks the moral authority to condemn abuses abroad when it’s failing to address the racism plaguing its own citizens.
Notably, Ray said, this tension is hardly new. In the 1940s and ’50s, many majority-nonwhite countries gained their independence from colonial rule. U.S. diplomats tried to tell them how to run their governments — even as Jim Crow terrorized Black Americans.
Ray said that, given what’s happening in the U.S. right now, he has deep sympathy for its diplomats, who are tasked with calling out human rights abuses overseas. As federal agents aggressively target vulnerable communities and their allies at home, he argued, U.S. envoys are placed in an increasingly difficult position: criticizing other governments for their treatment of their own people while defending a record that itself is under intense scrutiny.
“That’s the kind of situation I see us going back to,” Ray said. “Any message we take to a foreign government or to a foreign audience is undercut by our actions.”
The administration intends to extend its anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion stance beyond U.S. borders, recently saying that it would restrict foreign aid recipients from supporting DEI initiatives and transgender rights.
Alex T. Johnson, a former diplomat and Obama administration appointee, similarly highlighted the importance of diversity in the Foreign Service.
“There’s great benefit in having people with unique backgrounds in the Foreign Service,” Johnson, the former chief of staff to the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told Capital B, arguing that diplomats who bring a wide range of cultural and lived experiences are often better equipped to build trust with their foreign counterparts. “They can offer tremendous insight into different geopolitical contexts.”
But Johnson warned that progress toward a more inclusive and effective diplomatic corps may stall in the near term.
He believes that things will get worse before they get better, as the administration continues its efforts to centralize power by undermining diversity and the delegation of authority. These moves risk shrinking the range of perspectives that influence U.S. foreign policy.
It’s this turbulent landscape that has Spratlen feeling not only perplexed — but sad.
She said that the targeting of the Foreign Service is highly unusual and reads less like reform than outright sabotage — or a pointed rebuke of Black former Foreign Service officers and others who endured many barriers to help make the diplomatic corps more inclusive.
Clifton Wharton Sr., Spratlen explained, was the first Black diplomat to become an ambassador by building his career within the Foreign Service. A trailblazer in his own right, he spent roughly four decades serving in a range of posts in Europe, including in Romania and Norway.
“There are people who really feel that this is the slow death of the Foreign Service,” Spratlen said. “I hope not, because the U.S. has invested in — and benefited from — the Foreign Service for more than 100 years. But it’s very, very hard to see this in anything other than a negative light.”