Louisiana Suspect's Academic Program Was Designed to Attract and Recruit Potential Female Spies

The Washington academic program that Louisiana telephone-tampering suspect Stanley Dai helped to manage was part of an "affirmative action" initiative by U.S. intelligence agencies to recruit more female and minority spies—an irony in light of the strong "movement conservative" views that Dai and his codefendants in the bizarre New Orleans criminal investigation have espoused.

Ann Pauley, vice president of Trinity Washington University, acknowledged to NEWSWEEK that a key objective of the "Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence" at her school was to expose female and minority students to the kind of work spy agencies do and potentially interest them in becoming intelligence officers. Dai was associate director of the program between August 2007 and October 2008. "This program was set up to get minorities and women interested in intelligence careers," said another person familiar with the program's operations and goals, who asked for anonymity when discussing the subject because of controversy around the Louisiana case. Trinity University's programs include a women-only undergraduate program and other coeducational undergraduate and graduate programs, Pauley said.

As we reported Wednesday, the introduction-to-intelligence program that Dai helped to run was entirely funded by a grant from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, otherwise known as the intelligence czar's office. Pauley stressed that Dai's role in the program was entirely administrative and had nothing to do with teaching or anything related to intelligence, although online records indicate Dai did interact with high-ranking intelligence personnel. Dai helped organize seminars, for example, at which intel officials spoke (like this one). Officials of the intelligence czar's office say there is no record of Dai ever being in contact with their agency or visiting their highly secure headquarters in northern Virginia.

According to a biography posted on the Web site of a conservative charity called the Phillips Foundation (dedicated to "advancing constitutional principles, a democratic society, and a vibrant free enterprise system"), before joining the Trinity Washington program, Dai was associated with numerous causes and organizations affiliated with what is often known as "movement conservatism," which traditionally has been strongly opposed to "affirmative action" programs and hiring quotas. According to the bio, Dai's activities while a student at George Washington University included editing a conservative student paper called the GW Patriot and participating in the activities of the Young Americas Foundation, the GW College Republicans, and GW Colonials for Life.

Dai's three fellow codefendants in the Louisiana investigation-—all charged with attempting to enter the New Orleans office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu with the intent to "willfully and maliciously" interfere with a federal government telephone system--also have backgrounds as stalwart conservative activists. The most noteworthy of the group, James O'Keefe, became a conservative icon last year when he and a female associate, posing as pimp and prostitute, staged a series of home-video "stings" against the community-organizing group ACORN.

Lawyers for the Louisiana defendants have maintained that their clients did not intend to violate the law and that they may have engaged in a prank that got out of hand.