My son has observed a bias against USNA among his O1 peers.
That is pretty typical just out of the gate, and they realize the real competition is just starting, because, in the eyes of their enlisted people and those senior to them,
they are all green Ensigns and 2nd lieutenants (even if prior enlisted) who don’t know jack poop about the real Fleet, Corps, Army, etc.
They all know the tropes about other commissioning sources (elitist service academy, not only walked on water but invented it - ROTC part-time warrior training and full-time partying and no watch-standing to speak of - OCS/OTS 90-day wonders, enough said, etc.). They will soon realize - yes, here it is again - PERFORMANCE, PERFORMANCE, PERFORMANCE - sustained and high-quality - is all that matters to their chain of command. These JOs will start settling into pack plus, pack and pack minus groupings soon enough. There will be a distribution of commissioning sources across the performance range.
There are officers who are perfect exemplars of the worst stereotypes of their commissioning source, but the majority mature into competent officers, on a continuum from good to great. All it takes is one classic stereotype, any commissioning source, to kick off the JBR (Judgey Bias Reaction).
A sea story.
Back in the 90’s, as a consequence of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the 1989 Berlin Wall coming down, the Navy started its downsizing from a 600-ship Navy. The right-sizing of the officer community was accomplished in different ways:
- fewer accessions
- less flexible medical and admin separation guidelines
- but also a big mandatory short-term purge program of officers with 17-20 years being offered early retirement (normally retirement with benefits and pension occurred at 20 years); officers with less than 17 years offered a cash bonus to get out; junior officers on active duty who had received USNR commissions (at the time, NROTC and OCS) and had completed their ADSO were not offered another set of orders despite their desire to serve and no matter their performance, they were given orders to separate before the FY end. Different warfare communities had different quotas - surface warfare, with new ship deliveries being cancelled or slowed, or decommissionings pushed up, had a heavy bill to pay.
This last action caused a great deal of grief. I was the Flag Secretary/N1 (Admin/Personnel) on a Surface Warfare Group staff. I had ship COs, including many USNA grads, sitting on my office sofa in shock, begging me for any workarounds. Perhaps their top LT of all their LTs was a NROTC grad with a USNR type commission, but had completed their ADSO and had orders to separate in 90 days, and their dirtbag lowest-ranked LT had a Regular USN commission out of USNA, who was immune to this, as he “served at the pleasure of the Secretary” and could continue his career unless he did something so bad he could be separated for conduct or performance reasons. COs were trying to work deals where the USNR officer who wanted to stay in could be “swapped” for a USN officer who wanted out. It was awful. The moral of this story was ALL that mattered, in the eyes of these COs, was performance and a desire to serve, and no one cared where they got their butter bar.
The Navy learned a painful lesson, that though they succeeded in getting the numbers down to meet mandated reductions, a massive price in quality was paid. The type of commission issue has been addressed in the years since. I was fortunate in that I had a USNR commission out of OCS, but after two years, the Navy sent me a letter saying they were “augmenting” my commission from USNR to a USN Regular due to my documented performance, unless I declined in writing. I went to my department head, who said “take it and hang onto it.” I had no idea there were different types of commission for AD officers.