The Secret Service's fitness standards
Comprised by DEI or not?
With the attempted assassination of President Trump, the US Secret Service has come under scrutiny. From the right, Chris Ruffo has suggested the Secret Service is compromised by DEI (7/15/2024).
The obvious question: Why so many female agents? The answer, unfortunately, is the same as in many other institutions: DEI. The Secret Service has highlighted “diversity” as a key priority and its director, Kimberly Cheatle, hired by President Biden in 2022, has pledged to increase dramatically the number of women in the ranks.
Cheatle herself told CBS News that her goal was to reach 30 percent female recruits by 2030: “I’m very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women.”
To say it plainly: there is no need for women in a president’s security detail. The Secret Service is an elite institution that can funnel down a large number of candidates to select the few who will protect the president. The best candidates—the strongest and fastest, the best marksmen—will be men. That’s just reality.
The left doesn’t see any issues at all, as suggested in the Guardian (7/18/2024)
“It is an insult to the women of our agency to imply that they are unqualified based on gender,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service communications chief, told NBC News.
“Such baseless assertions undermine the professionalism, dedication and expertise of our workforce.”
So, who is correct, or at least closest to correct? It appears that becoming a Secret Service agent requires a minimum level of fitness to perform the job efficiently. This suggests that there should be a single fitness test for everyone. Not surprisingly, there are distinct criteria for women, but there are also varied requirements based on age. If one wants to argue that women should meet the same standards as men based on employment requirements, it would appear that all men, regardless of age, should meet the same standard.
The Secret Service does publicize its fitness criteria online. There are four tests: a 1.5-mile run, push-ups in one minute, sit-ups in one minute, and chin-ups. Each test has a point structure in which you can gain 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0 points. To pass, a candidate must earn at least six points and at least one point in three of the four fitness tests. What is required to pass based on age and gender? Let's go to the data.
Run times
Figure 1 shows the cutoffs for the 1.5-mile run to earn points for males based on age. Note that higher bars are slower times and hence worse in Figures 1 and 2.
It is worth noting that the cutoff increases with age. A man over the age of 50 can gain 4 points on the run test by running 2.58 minutes slower than a male between the ages of 20 and 29. Does that make sense? Is this fair?
If the work requires you to be able to run 1.5 miles at a given speed, then there shouldn't be an age adjustment. There should be only one speed criteria that must be met or failed. However, one must acquire a total of 6 points, so having agents with varying fitness skills may be beneficial. Some are speedier. Some are stronger. Etc.
Is this fair? Do you want to be a fast 20-year-old man partnered with a slow 50-year-old? The gap between a 4-point 20-year-old time and a 1-point 50-year-old time is more than 6 minutes. What about women?
Figure 2 depicts the cutoff scores for women, with two horizontal lines added to reflect the 4-point cutoff for men aged 20 to 29, as well as those aged 50 and up. It is unsurprising that women have slower cutoff times. In fact, it's not surprising that they are much slower. For 4 points, a 50+ year-old male must run at the same pace as a 20–29 year-old female, while a 20–29 year-old guy must go 2.5 minutes quicker.
In some cases, the comparisons are strange. For one point, a 50-plus male or female must run nearly the same time, but for two points, the male must go 2.5 minutes faster. This makes little sense, except that the 1-point run time is set so that a 50-plus person can meet at least that, and 18.82 minutes for 1.5 miles is slow. This is the first clue that the test is not totally based on science or standards.
Chin ups
Figures 3 and 4 illustrate the chin-up test for males and females, with Figure 4 displaying the two horizontal lines in the same manner as Figure 2. The one thing that jumps out at me is that for 50+ year-old men, we have almost minimal cutoffs to have different expectations for each point except the extra chin up to get 4 points. Except for 30-39, which goes from 1 to 2 points, the other three categories require 2 chin-ups to advance to the next point level. That's strange.
The figure clearly shows that women are not expected to do many chin-ups. It does not vary with age because the 20-29 age group already has minimal expectations. Men and women have quite different strength levels, and even though women are often lighter, chin-ups are extremely difficult for them because they lack upper body strength.
Push ups
Figures 5 and 6 represent the same type of graphs as above, but for push-ups. Again, it is not unexpected that women's expectations are significantly lower than those of men. A male over 50 must match (-1 push-up) what a female aged 20 to 29 must perform for 4 points.
Sit ups
The final category is sit-ups. Figures 7 and 8 show those cutoffs. There is still a difference in expectancies between men and women, but this group is closer than the others. A 50-year-old man only needs to match a 30- to 39-year-old female for 4 points. Note the gimme for the 50+ female, who only needs to complete one more sit-up to go from one to two points.
Conclusions
I’ve already demonstrated the significant differences in strength between men and women in Female vs. Male Grip Strength (8/1/2023). Figure 9 depicts grip strength (a proxy for overall strength) from this article by age group. The 20s and 50s are stacked on top of each other on the left. As you can see, males in their 50s are far stronger than women in their 20s. In fact, the median male in his fifties is stronger than nearly all girls in their twenties.
The Secret Service's fitness criteria are primarily strength-based; therefore, if women are to have a chance, the standards must be lower—significantly lower. In this case, Ruffo is mostly right when he argues, “The best candidates—the strongest and fastest, the best marksmen—will be men.” That's simply reality." I disagree with the “best marksmen” statement. It doesn't seem that one must be extremely fast or strong to be a great shot, at least in the case of a sniper. At the same time, he must acknowledge the lowering of men's standards as they age. Can some young women live up to the 50+ male standards? Yes. The question remains: what are the minimum standards required for the job? Why age adjust?
The Guardian piece appears to ignore the drastically different norms for men and women. The quote from the Secret Service Communications Chief, “It is an insult to the women of our agency to imply that they are unqualified based on gender,” is misleading. I'm sure the women meet the Secret Service's standards, but they differ significantly from the men's standards. The odds are that most, if not all, of the women do not meet male standards. In this case, it is reasonable to consider if men should be held to a higher standard just because they are men. This is where the left just shoots itself in the foot, as they can’t seem to acknowledge male and female differences.
If you asked someone at random if they had to choose a bodyguard, would they pick a male or a female? Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, any reasonable person will choose a male. If nothing else, they are likely to be bigger and taller, and hence better at getting in the way of a bullet. Here's a more interesting question. You need ten bodyguards. I selected ten men and ten women at random. Would you swap the fittest woman with the least fit man? Probably, but the decision is unclear, and we do not choose Secret Service officers at random.
Finally, most people acknowledge that men and women are not the same. Pretending otherwise makes the left appear foolish. I wish they would stop. This is not to say that there are no roles for women in the Secret Service. They might make good snipers. I could need someone who can enter women's spaces. Again, I do not totally agree with Ruffo. There are roles for women in the Secret Service, but most of them do not include being an on-the-ground bodyguard.
Finally, the fitness standards appear to have evolved to the point that they may no longer match actual employment requirements. I wouldn't be shocked if they've been reduced over time so that enough agents can be hired. Still, it seems logical that there are some fitness criteria, which can vary depending on the agent's function; however, as they exist, women have slower and weaker standards than men. If that weren't the case, there would be few, if any, female Secret Service agents.
Data
All data is from the US Secret Service Fitness Standards page.
Please share and like
Please help me find readers by forwarding this article to your friends (and even those who aren't your friends), sharing this post on social media, and clicking like. If you have any article ideas, feedback, or other views, please email me at briefedbydata@substack.com.
Thank you
In a crowded media market, it's hard to get people to read your work. I have a long way to go and I want to say thank you to everyone who has helped me find and attract subscribers.
Disagreeing and using comments
I'd rather know the truth and understand the world than always be right. I'm not writing to upset or antagonize anyone on purpose, though I guess that could happen. I welcome dissent and disagreement in the comments. We all should be forced to articulate our viewpoints and change our minds when we need to, but we should also know that we can respectfully disagree and move on. So, if you think something said is wrong or misrepresented, then please share your viewpoint in the comments.