In August 2023, the United States Military Academy hosted the 2023 West Point Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Conference. The opening of the conference featured in person endorsements of the conference by LTG Steven Gilland (Superintendent), BG Robinson (then Commandant), and BG Reeves (Dean). The following is the speech LTG Gilland gave to open the conference on the first day:
“All right. So, we are talking about I'm going to bring up the team from West Point up here as we as we talk about our topic today with really diversity and we think about how we how important, how critical it is not only to our United States military Academy, to our military, to our nation.”
“So, I had a little bit of testimony before Congress this summer. Anybody familiar with that by chance? Some of you might be. Look, if you're not, don't worry about it. Okay? All right. The bloopers reel is probably more entertaining from it, however. So, some of this a lot of the discussion was with regards to diversity and with regards to our missions and why it's so important. And I will tell you, and as I and I as I told Congress, I mean, it's incredibly important for the United States Military Academy in our Army, because when we think about who our army represents, which is the citizens of our nation, which is our entire population, and we look at our goal here at the United States Military Academy is that when we graduate, we our graduates are representative of our army. That's important as we think about going forward, because and I'm not going to talk about recruiting at this time, but again, our army, we pull from across the nation, young men and women serve our military from all over, really all over the world. And we've got to make sure that we are representative of our nation.”
In this speech, he states that DEI is “critical” to not only West Point, but to the nation. He also seems to mock the speech he gave to a Congressional Committee 19 July 2023 regarding ‘Admissions, Curriculum, and Diversity of Thought at the Military Service Academies’ where DEI at West Point was investigated.1 Apparently concerns from lawmakers about DEI were unimportant to LTG Gilland and the officers and cadets at the 2023 DEI conference.
In addition to speaking on the opening day, LTG Gilland gave a one-page endorsement of the conference that he signed and included on the first page of the program for the DEI conference. Clearly, LTG Gilland gave his full and very public endorsement of the Conference and the DEI principles it was promoting.
After the conference, Fox News and CDM/AFP reported that multiple Congressional representatives demanded answers regarding an Air Force Academy cadet that was caught on audio at LTG Gilland’s 2023 DEI conference insulting members of Congress that opposed DEI.
Interestingly, USMA canceled the 2024 DEI conference with no explanation. The next DEI conference is supposed to be March 2025. Preliminary reports indicate that LTG Gilland and the other West Point generals will not be on the program this time. At the 2023 Conference, all of the West Point generals gave keynote speeches during the opening hours of the conference and were all listed in the program and attendance list. Further, West Point has apparently changed the rules of the 2025 conference and are now no longer going to allow any picture, video or audio capture of events at the conference. This brings up an interesting question – if DEI is so great and is the answer to the military’s problems, why is West Point wanting to keep the discussion at the conference secret from the public? What is West Point hiding? Is this tacit admission that DEI is wrong?
West Point under LTG Gilland and his predecessor (GEN (Ret) Darryl Williams) has tried to hide from the public what is going on. Judicial Watch sued and released CRT curriculum in 2022 that is being taught at West Point. In November 2024, Judicial Watch sued for information regarding the recent ‘rebranding’ of West Point’s DEI office from DEI to “Office of Engagement and Retention.” Curiously, the same person (Lisa Benitez) is still in charge of the former DEI office that was renamed. That was after Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit into the removal of ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ from West Point’s mission statement (also under LTG Gilland’s watch). In addition to refusing to disclose his DEI agenda without being sued to do so, LTG Gilland has tried to personally intimidate West Point graduates like those in the MacArthur Society into silence regarding DEI and CRT at West Point.
Under Biden, it was not only fashionable to support DEI, it was likely encouraged to have generals push DEI on their commands to demonstrate obedience to DEI’s supporters and therefore increase chances for promotion. The political climate, however, has changed. DEI’s toxicity is finally being recognized all over America. Facebook was the latest mega corporation to shut down its DEI offices recently. With President Trump now back in office and having signaled that he will end DEI in the military, it is likely generals will seek to distance themselves from DEI and mask their support for it. Last week, Trump announced that Matthew Lohmeier would be the undersecretary of the Air Force. Lohmeier was the F-15 pilot and Space Force commander fired in 2021 for publicly questioning the CRT doctrine he was being ordered to teach to his unit.
Lohmeier’s appointment is surely not lost on the legions of generals who demonstrated such weakness in pushing DEI and CRT on their commands out of obedience and desire for promotion under Biden’s regime. It is probable LTG Gilland has had meetings with his staff to discuss how they are going to downplay their support for DEI. It appears LTG Gilland has already begun steps to mitigate the possible damage from DEI upon his career. However, he cannot hide that as the Superintendent in charge, he not only tolerated DEI, he embraced it, publicly and repeatedly endorsed it, and oversaw the insertion of its toxicity into academics and all other facets of cadet life.
LTG GILLAND IS DEI AT WEST POINT.
The only way he can make amends and disavow himself from this toxic perversion that has weakened our military is to publicly apologize for implementing and supporting it, denounce DEI by name, and give a detailed plan for how he will expunge it from West Point’s curriculum and campus. It is doubtful he will do so. Like so many other issues, he will likely just quietly change the cover sheet of DEI and remain silent and hope it blows over.
The West Point Cadet prayer includes the statement “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won.”2 As the overseer for the Honor Code for cadets and prosecutor for honor violations, will LTG Gilland start to demonstrate the honor he holds his cadets to and speak the truth?
- https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/house-event/LC72689/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22service+academies%22%7D&s=1&r=10
- https://www.west-point.org/family/bicent/prayer.html
