FBI Director James Comey’s pointed critique of law enforcement’s rocky dealings with African-American communities indirectly called attention to an uncomfortable fact: The percentage of black FBI agents has actually fallen over the past two decades.

The most recent statistics posted on the website of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency show African-Americans accounted for 4.7 percent of the bureau’s special agents in 2012, down from 5.6 percent in 1997.


Law enforcement critics have cited racial disparities on police forces as one of the reasons for strained relationships with black communities nationwide.

The FBI numbers dipped despite a flurry of high-profile discrimination lawsuits filed against the agency in the 1980s and 1990s. Those cases led to an admission of disparities in the treatment of minorities at the bureau, as well as to a slew of reforms intended to remedy those recurring problems.

Comey did not mention the specific personnel figures during his widely publicized address Thursday at Georgetown University, but in a question-and-answer period, he said the bureau’s recruitment of minority agents is inadequate.

“It is an imperative for all of us in law enforcement to try to reflect the communities we serve,” Comey said. “Big challenge for the FBI — the FBI is overwhelmingly white and male among my agent force. … I have to change the numbers.”

One retired African-American agent said he was surprised to hear Comey counseling police about courting minorities, given the FBI’s own record.

“It’s kind of hilarious that the director of the FBI would be giving local police advice, since the bureau has been dealing with that kind of issue for years,” said the former agent, who requested anonymity. “It amazes me how you can give advice, but you don’t use the advice you give.”

One prominent scholar of the FBI said he was taken aback by the stagnant employment statistics, which show African-American agents serve the bureau at about one-third the percentage of blacks in the U.S. population.

“I am surprised by it,” said Athan Theoharis, a retired Marquette University historian who has focused extensively on the FBI. “You look back in time and there were essentially no black agents. J. Edgar Hoover had pressure put on him in the 1960s to hire more black agents. … You’d think there’d be a steady progression, an increasing percentage of African-American agents, because there seemed to be opportunities that were denied before.”

The FBI has aggressively recruited at historically black colleges and universities, but Comey suggested Thursday that one problem the FBI faces is that the special agent job is not an entry-level position, but requires several years of work experience. Many candidates already have been snapped up by the private sector in that time and are hard to woo into government service, he said.

The director told one questioner at Georgetown: “If you’re as good as you probably are, because you go to school here, Coca-Cola is going to be after you, Microsoft is going to be after you, Apple is going to be after you, Exxon Mobil is going to be after you, and they’re going to throw all kinds of dough at you. Then, when you’re 29, you’ll be thinking, ‘Yeah, not so much go work for the government.’”

“If I get my hooks in you before the private sector puts the golden handcuffs on people, I think I can change my numbers,” Comey added.

While the number of African-American FBI agents has risen slightly in absolute terms — from 611 in 1997 to 652 in 2012 — the overall size of the agent corps has grown even faster, particularly as resources were focused on the terrorist threat after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There are now about 14,000 special agents in the ranks, according to the FBI.

The percentage of Latino agents has risen in recent years, but climbed only slightly as the Hispanic population zoomed higher. In 1997, Hispanic agents accounted for 6.9 percent of the special agent force. By 2012, they made up 7.1 percent.

The FBI director said the bureau has tried to address the lagging numbers of minorities by “devoting tremendous resources” to recruiting at a wide range of colleges and universities. In addition, he said the FBI is trying to hire recent college graduates into support and analyst jobs, with the goal of encouraging those employees to apply to be agents after a few years.

Former FBI agents cited a variety of reasons why the bureau has struggled to keep up its minority numbers.

Emanuel Johnson, who served as a lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit African-American agents brought against the bureau in 1993, said a huge push to hire new agents with computer experience may have held down the number of minority agents in recent years.

“A lot of that has to do with what type of agents they’re looking for background-wise,” Johnson said. “You hear stories from Silicon Valley about the lack of diversity there, and you wonder if there are the number of minority agents out there with [that] background.”

Beginning in the 1980s, the FBI was hit with a series of major discrimination lawsuits by women, African-Americans and Latinos. Hispanic agents won a key victory in 1988, prevailing on allegations that the FBI posted them on undesirable assignments referred to as the “Taco Circuit.”

Hundreds of black agents settled a discrimination suit with the FBI in 1993, but reopened the case in 1998, accusing the FBI of failing to follow through on promises to improve conditions for minorities. A new settlement was reached in 2001.

Most or all of those cases related to promotion issues, not discrimination in hiring, noted Nancy Savage of the Society of Former Special Agents.

“I don’t see any institutional barriers to employment with the FBI,” Savage said. “There’s active recruiting and encouragement to get [minority and women] applicants into the FBI. … It’s not an environment that’s not accepting of any of those particular groups.”

However, some former agents believe part of the FBI’s recruiting challenge arises from a sense in minority communities that all of law enforcement is infected by bias and racism.

“In the wake of Ferguson, Mo., … there may be a perception on the part of some minorities that they don’t want to be identified with a police culture that in the opinion of some people is oppressive,” said Joe Koletar, a retired agent who wrote a book about how to win a spot at the FBI.

Theoharis believes the FBI also still suffers from its role, under Hoover, in conducting surveillance of The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other crusaders for civil rights.

“It’s partly a function of the FBI’s history when you look at the intensive monitoring of civil rights activists and, even more generally, African-Americans in the past,” the professor said. “That kind of history might be an important factor discouraging qualified graduates from considering an FBI career.”

In his speech Thursday, Comey referred directly to that history, saying he keeps on his desk a memo detailing the flimsy basis on which the bureau wiretapped King. “We must talk about our history. It is a hard truth that lives on,” the director said.

During his remarks, Comey also denounced as “ridiculous” the lack of complete statistics on shootings by police nationwide. However, the data on the FBI’s website about the demographics of its employees are more than 3 years old. In response to queries for this article, officials said they could not immediately provide more up-to-date numbers or historical data.

Despite the trend in the available statistics, some active on the issue of race and policing hailed Comey for publicly wrestling with those questions and acknowledging that the FBI itself hasn’t made enough progress.

“I do applaud Director Comey for what he said,” said Dwayne Crawford of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. “From my standpoint, there haven’t really been enough leaders in law enforcement to get up and have an honest conversation. … I think he was very honest that we can all do better.”