Posted on 04/12/2025 4:51:56 AM PDT by george76
Neela Rajendra said deadlines are an obstacle to ‘inclusion.’.
NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has parted ways with its top diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed her title in an effort to keep her.
"Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]," lab director Laurie Leshin said in an all-staff email on Thursday. "We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best."
...
Leshin added that the newly formed Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success—intended to replace the DEI team Rajendra had led—would be moved to the Office of Human Resources.
The staffing shakeup comes a week after the Free Beacon reported that Rajendra, who has argued that deadlines undermine inclusion, had not been among the 900 workers laid off by the lab in 2024 due to budget cuts. Even after NASA axed its central diversity office in response to the Trump administration’s executive orders, the jet propulsion lab kept Rajendra on as the head of employee success, scrubbing "diversity" and "inclusion" from her title but keeping many of her duties the same. The new office, for example, would continue to oversee "affinity groups," according to a March 10 email from the lab, including the Black Excellence Strategic Team, or "B.E.S.T."
News of Rajendra’s continued employment came after a pair of NASA astronauts were stranded for nine months on the International Space Station. The debacle, which involved a faulty propulsion system, raised questions about whether the agency’s multimillion-dollar DEI budget had translated into safer spaceflight or more competent employees.
In a 2022 presentation, Rajendra criticized SpaceX’s "fast-paced" culture and "failure to promote DEI," linking those traits to the company’s high attrition rate. Three years later, it was a SpaceX capsule that rescued the stranded astronauts.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory did not respond to a request for comment.
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> “We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization.” <
Not every impact is a good one.
Just sayin’.
They wouldn’t have done it had attention not been called to it and they’d been FORCED to do this by the Trump administration.
What this tells me is that the rot goes deeper and whoever is in charge should have his ass fired too.
Houston, they likely still have some problems...
She aint laughing now.
And I’ll just toss this one in, just in case it’s related...
Oh, and guess what, it’s gotten at least one government contract...
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70B06C23F00001344_7014_70B06C21D00000048_7014
Bet there’s more...
The whole DEI thing is a farce. Mainly, it creates an atmosphere that pays for “wokeness” rather than competence. Fire all who push woke DEI BS. Rather than being hired and promoted on competence...the environment comes one of creating opportunities for those who buy into the cult of being woke and politically correct. What a pile of dung.
One more to toss in, a tweet from 2021...
Chelsea Kilpack
@ChelseaKilpack
I’m incredibly proud of the choices we’re making at HireVue. @NeelaRajendra and the team @SODIorg are producing great research and best practices to change the world of work and I’m happy to be a part of it.
https://t.co/sjsGoiQcVp
This post is unavailable.
2:04 PM · Feb 24, 2021
https://x.com/ChelseaKilpack/status/1364652365438021632
With apologies for the rabbit hole...
https://govtribe.com/vendors/hirevue-inc-dot-59p55
“...Hirevue Inc. has been awarded numerous federal contracts across various agencies to provide its video interviewing platform and related services...
Lots more details at the link.
Paging DOGE.
What this tells me is that the rot goes deeper and whoever is in charge should have his ass fired too.
Problem on board, Should have already been squared away not just put on another shelf and then the glowing past gushing alocades announcement,,, the director needs to go also, yes
It gets better. See my links further down the thread.
Hope DOGE is looking at those HireVue contracts.
DHS and the FBI, too.
that’s joy
pure happiness
Thanks
I am going to take a wild guess that she was right about the "fast-paced" culture and wrong about the "failure to promote DEI," linking those traits to the company’s high attrition rate.
She was correct that NASA’s fast paced culture forced those that could not maintain that fast paced schedule based work requirements to leave.
She was wrong that NASA did not embrace DEI principles. If they did not embrace DEI she would not have been hidden when they were required to fire DEI leadership.
It was those hired by implementing DEI principles that were lead to high attrition rates.
If you hire physical attributes rather that abilities you inevitably will hire people unable to achieve required work output. Those people will either leave because they recognize that they can not produce what is required or they will be forced out.
And the worst possible outcome is that they will be promoted or transferred internally to remove them from the departmental workforce.
Wow. It’s almost as if planning to fail was her mantra. At least now we know that DEI was the reason the NASA astronauts were stranded; just imagine!
Part ways, no YOUR FIRED and please let the door hit you in the a##
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