Not surprising that women are underrepresented in the ranks of criminal investigators & leadership roles at 4 of the nation's top federal law enforcement agencies. In the Holder era, I moderated a panel with 4 women leaders from USMS, FBI, DEA, & ATF /1 apnews.com/da6a1c14e26a48…
At the time of the panel, DEA was led by a woman, Michele Leonhardt, and USMS was led by a woman, Stacia Hylton. Former NY field office director @JanFedarcyk joined the conversation as well. At the time — before the days of @SallyQYates & Loretta Lynch, there were not women /2
Even at the highest ranks of DOJ. The beginning of the Obama Admin filled DOJ with a lot of men - CRM, CRT, CIV, the AG, the DAG, the Associate AG, all men. It was disheartening to see the largely male leadership at the beginning because there are so many amazing women in law /3
But they were largely not plugged in until later in the Admin. The women in law enforcement held higher jobs than women in law at the time of this panel (2012/13). Hard to believe that law was harder to fill than law enforcement. In fact, I had the former CRM AAG invite /4
@SlaughterAM to come speak to the entire Department of Justice about work life balance, based on her famous piece in the Atlantic about women having it all. I asked him to bring her to DOJ b/c when we don’t see women lead, it feels even harder to succeed. By spending a year of /5
My time at DOj working across the department on diversity and inclusion with the law enforcement and legal divisions, I wanted to be sure that women could see the possibility of ascension as women. The good news is that as the DAG and AG left, as the heads of CRT & CRM departed/6
Those ranks finally got female nominees from Obama WH - CRM, CRT, DAG, AG all ultimately led by women. And so incredibly morale-boosting. But law enforcement now has swung back to the men. And likely will remain that way for the next few years. Women at the top really matter. END
