A senior Indian-American diplomat has quit from the foreign service in protest against the "racist" and "sexist" policies of president Donald Trump.
"Up to now, Foggy Bottom's (State Department) upper echelons are looking whiter, more male and less like America," Indian-American diplomat Uzra Zeya wrote in Politico. She has alleged that the State Department under Trump is facing racial and gender bias.
Zeya is currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and she previously served as acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour.
"In my own case, I hit the buzz saw that Team Trump wielded against career professionals after leading the US Embassy in Paris through three major terrorist attacks over three years and after planning president Trump's Bastille Day visit," she wrote.
"Upon returning to Washington, as accolades for the president's visit poured in, I was blocked from a series of senior-level jobs, with no explanation. In two separate incidents, however, colleagues told me that a senior State official opposed candidates for leadership positions myself and an African-American female officer on the basis that we would not pass the 'Breitbart test'," she wrote.
She also described in detail the racial and gender bias that has crept into the State Department since Trump assumed office.
"If the State Department is not going to acknowledge this problem, Congress should insist on a serious commitment to diversity in American diplomacy from secretary Mike Pompeo by demanding answers for the slide in minority and female senior representation at State, accountability if any officials have violated equal opportunity laws, prohibitions on political retaliation and protections for employees who report wrongdoing," Zeya said.
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK StalinGetty images
