The US Air Force has canceled the promotions of dozens of service members after discovering a grading error in a test of their security knowledge. The error, described as an "isolated and highly unprecedented anomaly," was announced in a press release on Tuesday. It revealed that 135 airmen had been awarded incorrect scores on the security forces specialty knowledge test (SKT) and were wrongly informed they had earned promotion.
Details of the Error
Senior officers attributed the mistake to an "outdated scoring key." The group that was subsequently told they had not made the cut will be replaced by 135 others after the service completed a rescore of all 2,285 candidates who sat the exam. The quota of 586 available promotions to technical sergeant for eligible security forces airmen remained unchanged, according to the press release.
"We owe it to those affected to address it immediately," said David Wolfe, chief master sergeant of the Air Force, in a statement. "This is going to be hard for everyone impacted."
Context of Scrutiny
The episode comes amid scrutiny of Pete Hegseth's involvement in the elevation of officers in the Air Force and other services. Most recently, the defense secretary removed nine candidates, notably women and Black officers, from a Navy promotion list. In March, he reportedly intervened to block two women and two Black men from becoming one-star Army generals. Hegseth has criticized diversity and so-called "woke" policies in the armed services, but the Defense Department has repeatedly asserted that all promotions are based on merit.
"The [Defense] Department will never consider the color of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions," Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement last month.
Human Error and Prevention
The mistake on the grading key, according to the Air Force, was "the result of human error," and no artificial intelligence products were used in what it called an erroneous promotion cycle process. Wolfe said the Air Force had taken steps to avoid the situation happening again, including him hosting a call of wing command chiefs to discuss the failure.
"We owe it to our airmen to own the mistake and to take the necessary actions to not only make it right today, but to prevent future issues," he said. The Air Education and Training Command and Air Force Personnel Center have "strengthened their internal processes," the press release said, without giving details. Those affected, Wolfe said, had already been informed about the change in their status, and had access to a hotline to Air Force leadership to answer questions about why they were incorrectly selected for promotion.
