The Department of Defense (DOD) could drop nearly $270 million in taxpayer funds to further the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEI) agenda from fiscal years 2022 to 2024.
The DOD has scaled up its spending on DEIA in the past three years, jumping from $68 million in fiscal year 2022 to $86.5 million in fiscal year 2023. But the figure surged another $28.2 million to $114.7 million in the department’s initial request for fiscal year 2024.
If the DOD’s initial request for DEIA funding is included in the final legislation, the department will have spent $269.2 million on diversity initiatives across fiscal years 2022, 2023, and 2024, an average of $89.7 million per year.
Biden’s Pentagon has repeatedly pushed for further adoptions of the DEI agenda in its operations. The department’s Strategic Management Plan for fiscal years 2022 to 2026 listed one of its goals as “inculcate DEIA principles across all DOD efforts.”
“DEIA has impacts on both the Department’s workforce and its mission, and therefore it should be examined beyond the traditional human resources lens by which it historically has been viewed,” the strategic management plan reads, also touting the department’s effort to “institutionalize the advancement of DEIA and the value of diversity to the Department’s mission.”
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The $68 million dedicated to DEIA programs in fiscal year 2022 was earmarked for the Department of the Air Force, with the intention of increasing “training programs and diversity and inclusion initiatives,” with a portion of the funds going to “unconscious bias diversity training” as well as “increasing aviation scholarships for underrepresented universities Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets.”
Meanwhile, the $86.5 million sum in 2023 went towards “dedicated diversity and inclusion activities,” going on to say that the DOD is “investing in a number of programs and initiatives aimed at furthering DEIA, and incorporating DEIA values, objectives, and considerations in how we do business and execute our missions.”
It isn’t readily apparent what exactly the proposed $114.7 that the DOD requested for fiscal year 2024 would be used for, just that more information will be released in an upcoming “DEIA 2023 – 2027 Strategic Plan.”
While vague funding requests give little insight into the actual DEIA activities of the DOD, the department has been met with criticism over more visible manifestations of Critical Race Theory and the diversity agenda.
The National Security Agency (NSA), which is part of the DOD, internally published a 34-page diversity, equity, and inclusion document, a recent investigation from The Daily Wire revealed. The leaked document pushes Critical Race Theory and transgender ideology, with terms like “white fragility,” “transmisogny,” “settler colonialism,” and even the pronouns “ze” and “zir.”
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It blames “White Europeans” for “settler colonialism," attacks "white fragility," and warns of “transmisogyny.”
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“Our military is not focused on lethality. They’re focused on diversity and climate,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a combat-decorated U.S. Army veteran who fought in the elite Green Berets, asserted. “That’s going to result in our enemies not fearing us and respecting us as they should.”
Waltz, who currently serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said that government officials “holding the keys to power, those with their finger on the nuclear button or on incredibly powerful surveillance capabilities.” are being “indoctrinated that our civilian institutions are inherently racist, are systemically misogynistic and have a colonialist past and therefore bad.”
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The DOD created its Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion in September 0f 2022, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appointing General (Ret.) Lester Lyles to serve as its chair. Lyles explained in a statement that the committee would “provide the Secretary of Defense with advice and recommendations to improve racial/ethnic diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity as a force multiplier in the military.”
A freedom of information request of West Point revealed that the prestigious military academy was teaching cadets Critical Race Theory, including a lesson that white people have racial privilege and that “In order to understand racial inequality and slavery, it is first necessary to address whiteness.”
General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, infamously defended Critical Race Theory at a Congressional hearing, saying he wanted to “understand white rage.”
The Pentagon also brought on Bishop Garrison, who blasted Trump supporters as racist, as the senior adviser to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for human capital, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Garrison went on to lead a DOD working group aimed at countering extremism within the military.
But the DOD’s adoption of woke ideology isn’t limited to Critical Race Theory. Last year, an American Air Force base in Germany planned to hold, but ultimately canceled, a drag queen story hour performance for children of service members.
Democrats in the Senate have said that any budget proposal from House Republicans that reigns in diversity initiatives will have “no chance of passing.”