- The Biden administration has elevated diversity, equity and inclusion policies over U.S. national security by teaching critical race theory, promoting gender inclusiveness and more, a new GOP report alleges.
- Emphasizing DEI increases the danger of the department “supporting and advancing people on criteria other than competence,” the report said.
- “The Department of Defense’s (DOD) priority should be training the men and women of our Armed Forces to be a united, lethal, and battle-ready force primed to defend the United States and her interests at a moment’s notice. Instead, Biden’s woke Pentagon is using taxpayer dollars to promote blatant anti-American ideology,” Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A new GOP report slams the Biden administration for promoting race and gender ideology in the U.S. military, alleging the administration’s policies undercut the military’s mission to defend the homeland.
The report, produced by Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, argues that the Department of Defense has shoehorned critical race theory and gender identity dogma into the U.S. military at all levels of training and operations. The Pentagon’s emphasis on race and gender not only conflicts with American values of freedom and equality, but cripples the military’s ability to respond to the global security threats facing the U.S. today, the report claims.
“The Department of Defense’s (DOD) priority should be training the men and women of our Armed Forces to be a united, lethal, and battle-ready force primed to defend the United States and her interests at a moment’s notice. Instead, Biden’s woke Pentagon is using taxpayer dollars to promote blatant anti-American ideology,” Roy told the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Biden Admin Super-Charged Military Recruitment Crisis With ‘Woke Policies,’ Expert Says)
The report accuses the Pentagon of obsession with race, highlighting the promulgation of critical race theory in service academies and statements from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley calling for a purge of extremism in the military.
“I want to understand white rage,” Milley said in remarks about the rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020.
Austin pledged to “rid our ranks of racism and extremism” during his confirmation hearing, Reuters reported. Upon taking office, he called for a full DOD “stand down” to create space for military leaders to address the problem of extremism.
Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to Austin, called systemic racism “one of our greatest national security challenges,” the report said.
Rubio and Roy highlighted the administration’s pick of Kelisa Wing as chief diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer in the DOD’s education agency. Wing became the subject of backlash in 2020 after tweeting statements perceived as derogatory to white people.
“I’m exhausted with these white folx in these [professional development] sessions. [T]his lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that black people can be racist too,” Wing said.
The report argued that emphasizing DEI increases the danger of the department “supporting and advancing people on criteria other than competence.”
In a battlefield situation, U.S. warfighters need to know that their peers and superiors are the best equipped to defend the homeland and bring military members home safely, not whether they represent a particular identity group, the report alleged.
“Rather than making the case for American greatness and protecting our nation, the military is parroting woke nonsense. It’s dumb, it doesn’t work, and it’s dangerous,” Rubio said in a statement upon the report’s publication.
The report also slammed Democratic administrations for allowing and promoting sex reassignment surgeries for servicemembers, despite the negative ramifications in heath and cost, with recovery periods for such procedures lasting up to one year.
“We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter Chinese aircraft carriers and less time thinking about pronouns,” Rubio said.
![Paula M. Neira, Clinical Program Director, John Hopkins Center for Transgender Health speaks during the ceremonial address for the USNS Harvey Milk at General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California on November 6, 2021. - One of the first openly gay politicians in the United States, who was assassinated four decades ago, will have a ship named after him this weekend, as the US military looks to keep step with modern-day social attitudes. The USNS Harvey Milk honours a former navy diver who served at a time there was a ban on homosexuality in the armed forces, and who was later shot dead in San Francisco, months after winning public office.](https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/GettyImages-1236398307-scaled.jpg)
Paula M. Neira, Clinical Program Director, John Hopkins Center for Transgender Health speaks during the ceremonial address for the USNS Harvey Milk at General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California on November 6, 2021. (Photo by ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images)
At the same time, the Biden administration has refused to hold DOD leaders accountable for mistakes made on the battlefield, the report alleged.
It also called out a “double standard” that exists for conservatives and liberals on freedom of speech while in uniform. For example, the Army launched an inquiry into a chaplain who sent an email containing pro-life message to troops in June after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision.
However, a medic in uniform who asked, “How am I supposed to swear to support and defend the Constitution and a country that treats its women like second-class citizens?” in a social media post has not been disciplined, the report said.
The military “cannot be turned into a left-wing social experiment,” the report said.
The DOD believes its DEI efforts are fundamentally about “ensuring people are treated with dignity and respect” and help to overcome systemic barriers or discrepancies in how people are treated, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Charlie Dietz told the DCNF.
“We always talk about weapons systems, yet every one of us will agree that our greatest weapons system are our people. So that’s why our policies to better leverage our people and increase unit cohesion are important here,” Dietz said.
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