Actually come to the course. So thats a key part of that piece, and then when it comes to the communications, clearly a communications is a big part of our trust. We need to explain why the gender neutral standards, how were going to ensure that everybody meets those standards, both men and women, why theyre necessary for the occupation in the first place because theres some question as to is it really the right task that should be done in these standards, in these different moss, and then that by communicating that a little more effectively than we have, this is going to help us build the trust for both men and women to want to continue down that pipeline for those different areas. Thats an important part of the implementation plan. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, please. Sue fulton, im the chair of the u. S. Military board of visitors. Former signal officer. Obviously, we are dealing with a question of Critical Mass too and i want to go back to that because i want to follow up a little bit deeper. We talk about Critical Mass or sufficient dad ray, i was surprised to hear you say you thought it would be different if you thought it was on a ship or infantry platoon or submarine or the unit. So how do you define what Critical Mass would be . Is there a common definition where you say all right, this is the best operating capability of the unit . And sufficient cadre is, of course, a different question. In both of those i guess i would want to understand how were going about defining those. I have a better understanding how were going about defining standards, standards for the mission versus standards for the men, even though theres work to be done, at least we have a way to define that. But id like to hear more definition. Thanks. Sure. Well maybe please, go ahead if you want to. So maybe to expand on what was already said. We believe it would be different based on the requirements of the services and based on the requirements of the units. For instance, what works on a ship may not be whats needed for an aernlrmy unit for for a marine corps unit or a small special operations unit. We think its important to allow the services to define cadre. The important thing is, as you said, leadership at the point of insertion and ensuring we have the right support structure there, but there isnt going to be a singular definition, a onesizefitsall definition that works for all units and all services. Let me also add that, and i probably wasnt clear on first go we will were going to watch this very closely to see if in those different specialties theyve done the right things the right support structures, and were going to measure the support structures and if its sufficient grade, if its not sufficient we need to make changes. Just because they say its going to take two females on a sub today doesnt mean that thats going to hold a year from now. So, again, this is not going to stop on january 1st. Were going to continue to do in stride assessments. Its a great question. We want them to succeed. Any other questions . Yes . Let me ask you a question, and i think then afterwards you will have to go. But with the studies that have been done thus far, what has been some of the biggest surprises, positive or negative, and what do you see as some of the Biggest Challenges moving forward . I will let you go first. Sure. Well i often use a biggest surprise. So we were reviewing and validateing the standards. We said we have standards right, so why do you have to go through all this . And again, it was to review to make sure theyre current and i used the often theres historically the weight at Airborne School has been a 45pound pack weight. He always thought thats 45 pounds since world war ii because thats the weight of the ammunition or how much water or what an airborne soldier had to carry in world war ii. But when the army and training and doctrine command started to pull that spring and look at behind what was the standard and why, what they found was 45 pounds was the minimum weight that a soldier needed to have below them or as they were jumping out of the airplane. Anything less than 45 pounds would fly up and get tangled in the risers and so that was a classic example of that 45 pounds had nothing to do with being an infantryman or being an airborne soldier and had everything to do with falling out of an airplane. As an example of a standard that we had had for many years that everybody accepted as the necessary standard but perhaps it wasnt the right standard. Do you have a good example like that . Thats a great example, and thats the reason i dont jump out of airplanes, by the way. But i think that one of the challenges to address that other half is that all throughout this process weve got to maintain the trust of not only the Service Members but of the public and to do that we need to just continue our communications. We have to have the right implementation plans and we just need to you know taking our motivated volunteers and helping them be successful, not that they need a help up or hand out but we need to make sure everything is in place for them to do what they do best, and when you hear the interviews of the ladies both out of the Marine Corps School and the rangers this weekend, i am so inspired that despite all this, theyre excited to be there. They will make a difference. They are paving the way, and our job is to cement in the right policies so that they can continue down a successful career path and become our Senior Leaders of tomorrow, and thats our biggest challenge. Thank you. I think, indeed, communication is going to be key both for, you know future soldiers as well as the public at large and in that sense i think its also going to be crucially important to have some of the studies and reports being published, and so that is a transparent process. I was also very happy to hear you say that the presumption is that every position has to be open, and i think on that note i would like to thank you for coming here. I hope you will join us for maybe a next event and tell us how progress is going on this arena. Thank you so much. Please join me [ applause ] okay. I think were ready. Im Nancy Campbell from the National Womens law center and i, too want to thank our sponsoring organization and all the cosponsors for having this important conference and discussion today. Our panel is to talk about gender neutral occupational standards, and i think we heard two important pieces from the Previous Panel that it would be wise for us all to remember. One is that the standard setting process is for all the occupations in the services, not just for combat positions and not just for Ground Combat positions. The second is that the purpose isnt to lower standards or raise standards, but to get the right standards which, of course could involve some different standards and attacks from some people that they have been lowered or raised. So its important to as our Previous Panel said, get the standards right, and thats what were going to talk about today. And im going to just start with a little bit of the sort of legal background on standards setting in our country because i think that secretary panetta and chairman dempsey when they issued their directive in january of 2013 which said that there had to be validated gender neutral standards before integration proceeded were doing so against the backdrop of the law in this area and were recognizing not only that integration wouldnt and couldnt be a success unless youre measuring everybody by the same standards and making sure that those were the right standards so that it wouldnt be appropriate, for example, to measure a womans ability to participate in any Ground Combat occupation or position against a standard that hadnt been validated even for the men who were currently holding the position. So in the civilian world, most of the law in this area has been made under title 7 of the Civil Rights Act which is the law that prohibits discrimination employment on the basis of sex as well as several other classifications, and the important point that has been made in the case law under title 7 is that any standard that has a differential impact on women and men must be shown to be validly able to predict job performance. And this has been true in many occupational situations including many nontraditional occupations that have certain similarities to the military such as Police Departments and firefighters. And turning to physical standards, since thats where a lot of the debate is concentrating now even though, again, i repeat that the directive from the secretary was that there must be occupational standards for every mos and that means not just physical but mental or any other standards that are validly related to the performance of that occupation. And what the courts have looked to under title 7 is that there has to be a pretty stringent and rigorous scientific process in establishing what those standards should be. For example, theyve invalidated physical tests for personnel selections when the required task just measured general physical ability. For example, and im quoting now from very specific cases, pushups situps and pullups have generally not been sufficient to show that that is an appropriate test for a particular job performance, and instead, they have required that the test that has been articulated be established to have a sufficient content validity, meaning that it has to be actually representative of actual job behaviors. For example, there was a case that invalidated a test of a Police Department that required people who were trying to qualify to be a cop to run around a track for a mile to see if they could complete it within a certain period of time. That was invalidated because they couldnt show that that was something that most Police Officers had to do. Instead, most Police Officers when they were in pursuit of a subject, that was what the subject was argued to be the validation for only had to run short distances. Running a mile was so unusual that they said that it wasnt an appropriate test for determining the qualifications for that job. So generally to pass muster what an organization that is employing a test has to show is usually that theyve actually gone out looked at what people do in the field in that job, and determined what the tasks are that are part of the actual recurring tasks that one has to do under that job. So if its an outlier test, like running a mile, thats typically not sufficient. And then after theyve done the observations in the field, they generally have to show that theyve developed the measure something to measure these tasks by that is representative of what the individual has to do in the field. So its okay to have proxy tests, but the proxy tests have to be ones that do fairly predict what the individual would have to do in the job when she or he had the job and usually they have to have some kind of a scoring system that shows that theres a certain neutrality to how people are measured and that can fairly and reliably assess how one whether one is passing or failing, and for example if you have a pass fail test and you say that anybody below a certain score cant get the job, then you have to be able to show that that lower score is related and is very consistent with the minimum requirements that you have for the job. So its a fairly rigorous not only in how you set the standard but then in how you define the task that is can be used as a proxy for the standards. Now, having said all that, the sort of final step is it obviously that you have to measure people individually. You cant measure people as a group. You cant say that as a group these people cant do the job as a gender these people cant do the job as a raise thesece these people cant do the job, but rather you have to measure people individually and determine their qualifications for the job on an individual basis. Now, having said that, title 7, of course, doesnt apply to the United States military in terms of its military jobs so why am i even talking about all this case law . Im talking about it for two reasons. One is that i think that were there to be a legal chal wleng to a standard or to the fact that someone was disqualified from a job because the standard wasnt the appropriate standard, i think that the courts would definitely look to the law under title 7 because thats where most of the standard setting law has been developed in this country, and so its highly relevant as to whether that standard has been set appropriately or applied appropriately to a particular individual. And theres a second reason as well, and that is that as many of you know, in the ndaa for fiscal year 2015, there was language included on the standard setting process specifically in the military and specifically under the directive of secretary panetta and chairman dempsey and that language says that the secretary of defense must ensure that the gender neutral occupational standards, and here im quoting, accurately predict pmption of actual regular and recurring duties of a military occupation and are applied equitably to measure individual capabilities. So we have law in this area as a backdrop under title 7 where there has been a great deal of experience in setting occupational standards and applying them and we have a specific directive in the ndaa which essentially replicates what is the title 7 standard. So now against that background were going to hear from our terrific panel here today to talk about what is happening in the standardsetting process, what should be happening in the standardsetting process and what has happened as part of the standardsetting process and i assume is ongoing in canada where they have very successfully integrated women into their armed forces and have a great deal of experience in this area. Were going to start with im going to introduce all of you and say what youre going to do so i can stop talking for a while. Were going to start with hearing from ellen harring, who is a retired army colonel and senior fellow at Women International security, and as you heard been very actively leading its combat integration initiative. Hes going to talk about the armys and marine Corps Efforts to set standards. And then well hear from sue janeen. And everybodys bios are more complete so im going to summarize. Shes the manager for Human Resources for the Canadian Special forces command and a former member of the Canadian Armed forces. Shes been very involved in the development and ongoing implementation of canadas occupational standards and the tests to measure those standards. And then were going to hear from carolyn beecraft who many of us have known and worked with for a very long time, and she has a particular perspective here from her time both in the army and in as the assistant secretary of the navy for personnel and readiness in a former life, and shes going to talk about give us a little bit of her overview of what the process should be, not only right now but going forward. So ellen. Thank you. So as always, the devil is in the details, and certainly its definitely in the details of standards setting in the military and of course all the services, but im going to talk about the army and the marine corps simply because we have the preponderance of the positions and i cant talk about so com because i have no idea what theyre doing. I would love to talk about them or have somebody up here to talk about their standard setting process but havent managed to crack that nut yet. Whats the army doing . The army had has take an very deliberate charted a pretty deliberate course. They assigned tray dock to lead the effort. They then reached out to subordinate organizations,. They brought in their Research Scientists and they tasked them with setting the standards, and i believe that the majority almost all their focus, has been on the closed occupations. I dont think theyve gone back and looked at all the other occupations that are already open even though that has been previously they were supposed to do that. So the Research Team started out by going to the proponents school. They asked the propennant schools, okay tell us what your standards are, and they got sets of standards from the proponent schools. They conducted a number of surveys, interviews, focus groups, and then they took those occupational standards to the field across the u. S. They went to a number of units, and they tested the units with the standards that they had been given, and what they found wation that only about 60 of the solers in these units that were out there and supposedly qualified could actually pass the standards that they had been told were their standards. So the Research Team came back and said these cant be your standards if only 60 of the soldiers out there are meeting the standards. What they did, my understanding what they did, they said youve got to have show us standards that 90 of your soldiers are actually meeting. They readjusted the standards. The Research Team also did some Research Field research, watching soldiers actually going through their missions, and readjusted the standards to the point where approximately i understand now 90 of qualified soldiers can actually meet those standards. And last month they opened combat engineers. So its the first of the occupational Ground Combat occupational standards to be open. Combat engineers was opened last month. Field artillery is supposed to be opened next followed by armor and infantry. Now, combat engineers is were about six months behind. Were supposed to open in the fall. Artillery was supposed to be opening this spring. So everything seems to be a little bit further behind, but hopefully if standards are set now, they can happen on a rolling basis. Having said that theres some problems with even the approach weve gone to with this 90 can pass the standard. First of all, its a normative standard based on men that are out there in the field. Its not really a gender neutral. They havent gone back in the way i would like to see the army go