On July 13, in Butler, Pennsylvania, a beloved father and husband, daughter dad, died protecting his wife and daughter from an assassin’s gunfire. His family played his favorite song, “I Can Only Imagine” by MercyMe, at his funeral. The secret services have failed.

The shortcomings are too long to list. As detailed in the 133-page Senate interim report, the lead agent failed to report that he had credible information about a threat, which would have resulted in the event being moved indoors. At least eight Secret Service agents knew of a “suspicious” person with a rangefinder half an hour before the shooting.

And yet Trump found himself on stage. Worse still, not a single person interviewed by federal investigators took responsibility for any security breaches.

This mess is characteristic of an organization that lacks focus on its mission. And of course, the first sentence of the Secret Service’s strategic plan is that the service achieves “excellence through talent, technology and excellence.” diversity.” This is the Secret Service’s “Vision,” meaning “what success will look like.”

Oh. No wonder the Secret Service lacks focus on its mission. His definition of success isn’t protection, it’s an intangible focused on how people look. The confusion is not the work of the secret services issuethis is the central objective.

As part of this diversity-focused vision, the Secret Service has committed to having a force that is 30 percent female by 2030. In a recent Secret Service podcast attempting to flesh this out, one agent simply described that it’s “important to have female representation, if you don’t have any.” This is a failure on the part of this department.

Former director Kim Cheatle admitted she had a huge retention problem, losing 48% of her workforce, but decided to focus on diversifying the agency with women. The lead advanced agent himself apparently failed one or more training exams, was not known to be a high-quality agent, and was still promoted.

It’s not good.

As a women’s organization, the IWF is preparing a lawsuit against the Secret Service for gender discrimination. Agents and retired agents can anonymously share their stories with us at iwf.org/secret-service.

But shouldn’t we encourage girl power? We are.

Sex discrimination is illegal, both under the Fourteenth Amendment (for the government) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (for employers). Enforcing this principle, whether for men or women, helps women.

And remember, the hero of July 13, Corey Comperatore, is dead. Girl power means thinking about your daughters and your wife, not the aesthetics of law enforcement.

But we also care about women in the workplace, who deserve to be treated and seen as equals. Following the first assassination attempt, women in the Secret Service came under heavy criticism.

Then-director Kim Cheatle, we were told based on internal leaks, was considered a “DEI hire” and a friend of Jill Biden, not the best person for the job. She stopped.

The female agents who accompanied Trump that day, including one woman who put herself in the line of fire, faced endless public concerns about their competence and physical strength. None of this is good for women.

Doubt is common, and unfortunate, for women in the workplace in general and in male-dominated fields in particular. In Big Law, I will never forget the intense interviews requiring me to share unique perspectives on specific trends in law, when the same interviewers asked male candidates about their favorite summer gigs. (I still wonder if while wearing my hair up or down I chose to let it down, it made me look too feminine and cost me an offer.)

We should solve this problem. But the way to push women into a lower class is to establish quotas. It becomes almost impossible to be treated equally by your colleagues, because your employer is not.

Additionally, quotas prioritize numbers over the more difficult task of accounting for practices hostile to women. Employers should ask themselves: Does advancement require late night drinking with clients and spending hours on the golf course?

Can I open a daycare on campus? Should employees linger unnecessarily after 5 p.m., when work could be done just as well at home? Do meetings without an agenda give rise to absolute explanations? But it’s difficult. It’s easier to hire a set number of women and pat yourself on the back.

And quotas establish a rigid societal expectation of what women “should” do. Instead, women should be supported in their various career choices, even if that means fewer women than men become agents.

Many women make career choices that lead to greater flexibility, irregular hours, or physical security, instead of rising through the ranks of law enforcement.

We should celebrate these choices and work to ensure equal opportunities for all women, not equal outcomes.

Diversity, for diversity’s sake, is not excellence. This does not increase presidential protection. It doesn’t save lives during a hurricane. And it does no favors to those it claims to help.

The IWF is proud to join the Mountain States Legal Foundation in putting an end to this pernicious practice.

May Mailman is the director of the Independent Women’s Law Center (iwlc.org).