uring oral argument in the college admissions racial preferences cases (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC), Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts inquired of United States Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether the service academies should “rise or fall” with the court’s ruling regarding Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The solicitor general, joined by the Department of Defense (DOD) general counsel, had claimed in briefing that the continued use of racial preferences at the service academies is a “national security imperative,” prompting the question.
The chief justice asked, effectively, whether DOD seeks an exemption for the military from any ruling against Harvard and UNC banning racial preferences’ further use. Prelogar’s replies fell short of asking for a military carveout, but she left the door open, reiterating the military’s alleged “distinctive interests” in using racial preferences and her claims that they are a “truly compelling interest” and “critically important” for the military.
Not addressed in rebuttal arguments were the reasons why there is no compelling national security imperative and how racial preferences are harming our military...
To read more visit The Federalist.
The U.S. military has a racism problem alright, and a corruption problem as well. However, it's not in the rank and file, it's in the senior officer corp, and civilian leadership.
See the incident below where a general officer (Ohio National Guard Adjutant Maj. Gen. John Harris) threatens and attempts to assault a black reporter simply doing his job during OH Governor DeWine's press conference on the train derailment/chemical fire. This is the way they roll in Beijing; it's not supposed to be like this in the United States of America. We have a free press corp, General, and free speech to boot.
When I was the U.S. armed forces, people were relieved of command for such behavior.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has forced the prosecution of U.S. military members who refused to take the Covid mRNA gene therapy injections, falsely called 'vaccines'. He has continue to allow service members to be persecuted after Congress removed the Covid-19 vaccine mandate. He has allowed the coverup of a massive increase in deadly side effects with service members after taking the injection. He is pushing Marxism throughout the armed forces with critical race theory (CRT).
Lt. General Richard Clark, USAFA Superintendent forced his cadets to take the vaccines, even in the face of prolific evidence the injections were dangerous and did not work against the virus. He even forced a cancer survivor to get vaccinated in the face of evidence the injections harm one's immune system. He has pushed critical race theory at the Academy which is an attempt to divide the races and harm the force. He then told falsehoods about his racist agenda at the institution.
One Air Force cadet recently died on the way to class with a blood clot in his lung, which the academy blamed on a 'football injury', when it is common knowledge the vaccinated are experiencing blood clots, coronary issues, and sudden death.
General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has undermined civilian control of the military by working behind the duly-elected President's back in communicating with the Chinese Communist Party on nuclear policy. He has worked to divide the force with critical race theory. He has pushed the 'vaccines'. He is worried about 'white rage'.
General Darryl Williams, commanding general of United States Army Europe and Africa, previously the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, oversaw the implementation of CRT among the Cadet Corp and enabled the persecution of cadets who did not want to take the vaccine.
If this isn't racism and corruption? What is?
Guest post by Thomas Klocek, USNA '69
The current climate of being “woke” is all about oneself. It is political correctness on steroids. It rewards conformity to ideological perspectives rather than real performance. It does not look at others, their needs (except when “virtue signaling” – trying to make yourself appear to be taking the moral high ground), or how to work with them. Some of the basic principles of being “woke” include lack of personal responsibility for one’s actions, the need for safe spaces when there is a hint of adversity, and the right to be offended at the slightest trigger.
The youth of today are indoctrinated into being afraid to think for themselves. The idea of self-sacrifice is foreign to them. Today’s counterculture and the tyranny of moral relativism have twisted their development. This culture pushes them to believe that their nation, their upbringing, their families, and their history are all based on hate. It is divisive and works to set them apart and isolate one group from another based on all the biases the elites can think of. You cannot build an effective team if the members are in conflict with each other. Teamwork requires unity, not divisiveness. Recognizing that divisiveness is prejudicial to good order and discipling, the military services have led the way in fighting racism and fostering equality of opportunity. For decades, the military has provided equal pay for equal service.
A major characteristic of military service is self-sacrifice. Military members give up time with their families to deploy for months at a time, even more in crisis situations. They put their lives on the line. One doesn’t have to be in a combat zone to be in dangerous situations. For example, just going to sea is a hazardous situation.
A friend recently sent me a picture of a famed New England lighthouse being assaulted by the towering waves of an early winter storm. Needless to say, the lighthouse, despite having withstood the ravages of the sea for over two hundred years, suffered some damage. The photographer who caught the awesome picture noted that he was in awe of the power of nature. Given time, just about anything manmade will succumb to nature. The world, beautiful and awesome as it is, can be a very harsh and dangerous place. Talk to any sailor who has weathered a storm at sea (or just the daily conditions in the North Atlantic in fall/winter). Think about WWII when the illustrious Bull Halsey ran into a typhoon and lost 3 ships with several others significantly damaged and numerous sailors washed overboard. The ships were there when the sun went down but could not be found the next morning. Having spent over two years at the Oceanography Center in Guam, I can attest to the power of these tropical storms.
This is the stuff of songs, even in the inland seas known as the Great Lakes, such as the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The sea is not a place for wimps. You don’t get a participation trophy – you survive, or you don’t. And to survive, you need courage, teamwork (unity), and perseverance. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is acting in the face of fear and danger, not turning your back on it. Hardly characteristics of “wokeness.”
Think of the men who signed our Declaration of Independence. They certainly were not looking for a “safe space.” The Constitution of the United States guarantees to protect every state against invasion (i.e., individually or collectively) and empowers congress to “raise and support armies” and to “provide and maintain a navy.” Our founding fathers knew the hostility of the world at large and thus provided for protection of the nation. Following the woke agenda results in weakening the defense of our constitution and the nation as a whole by changing the priorities of the services intended to protect the country to those of catering to individuals within the services themselves. It diverts attention from issues of readiness and leadership to catering to the whims of individual members.
An organization that relies on the ability and merit cannot function effectively in an environment of equity or equal outcomes. Military service is not the subject of attendance awards but rather one of performance. The mediocre pilot is not going to fare well against an enemy who has honed his flight and dogfight skills against difficult opponents. We don’t want our fighters to be passable, we want them to be better than the enemy. A fighting unit cannot be effective in a cancel-culture environment.
Other than working to better oneself in competition with one’s peers, to advance and build a better force, the military, to be effective, is not a self-serving organization. Although there will always be a few who try to advance at the expense of others, most successful military career personnel acknowledge that their success would not have been possible without the help of others. At the Naval Academy we were introduced into the naval history of those who sacrificed themselves for others, such as Chaplain George Rentz giving his life jacket to a seaman during the sinking of the USS Houston during WWII, and telling him, “Take it, lad, you need it more than I do.” Or Lieutenant Anthony Tortoras, USMC at Guadalcanal, who wrote, “Always pray, not that I shall come back, but that I will have the courage to do my duty.”
The motto of the American Legion, the largest veterans’ organization, is “God and Country.” Military service is truly service in that it involves sacrifice. Most people who join the military do so because they believe there is something greater than themselves, not exactly a concept of wokeness. Even in the days of the draft (conscription) the underlying concept was service to the nation and to others as a necessary aspect of citizenship. Individualism had to take a back seat.
“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.” —Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC.
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) training material records on critical race theory (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense(No. 1:22-cv-03510)).
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Air Force Academy, a component of Department of Defense, failed to respond to an August 5, 2021, FOIA request for any and all PowerPoint presentations used for training and/or classroom instruction discussing critical race theory (CRT) and/or “white supremacy.” Judicial Watch also requested emails about this issue for Air Force Academy senior leadership.
“Marxist critical race theory and its racial division have no place at the Air Force Academy, which is training the next generations of Air Force leadership,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And, per usual, the scandal is compounded by the cover-up of records about the propaganda program abusing Air Force cadets.”
On September 23, 2022, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit on behalf of Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc. (STARRS) against the U.S. Department of Defense for Air Force Academy records regarding “systemic racism,” as well as records of critical race theory at the Academy.
Judicial Watch in July 2022 sued the U.S. Department of Defense for records related to the United States Naval Academy implementing critical race theory in the training of naval recruits.
In June, Judicial Watch received records revealing critical race theory instruction at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. One training slide contains a graphic titled “MODERN-DAY SLAVERY IN THE USA.” [Emphasis in original]
he U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in two cases challenging race-based affirmative action practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC). A group called Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued those civilian schools for discriminatory admission policies, but the high-stakes legal drama also involves the military.
Arguing for the Department of Defense, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar insisted (without evidence) that military officer corps diversity “is a critical national security imperative” and that “it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race conscious admissions, including at the nation’s service academies.”
How did the military get roped into this legal debate?
To read more visit The Federalist.
As the 25th anniversary arrives of women being allowed to attend the oldest state military college in the country, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is drastically changing its approach as it attempts to keep pace with not only progressive academic norms but also with the woke culture that has been sweeping across Democrat-led states.
Kimberly Dark, the author of lesbian fanfic and a fat rights activist, was invited to VMI in honor of the anniversary of women being permitted to attend the institution. Meanwhile, a diversity training presentation at the Institute poses the question, “How have you benefited from adherence to your gender role?”.
Under Superintendent, Cedric Wins, VMI has seen a drastic shift toward woke culture and a focus on gender, redefining “masculinity,” and intolerance toward white people.
At VMI’s Preston Library, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) resources include “The History of White People” and “White Guys on Campus” which discuss “whiteness” along with the “habits of racism among white male undergraduates” and include other texts such as Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist” and “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo.
The changes have come from Wins whose “One Corps, One VMI Unifying Action Plan” is driving away cadets who are drawn to the institution for its warrior-centric appeal rather than a DEI-centered curriculum that aims to “empower Cadets to gain strength through diversity, acceptance by inclusion.”
Enrollment for the new VMI curriculum has fallen by 25% from 522 freshmen in 2020 to only 375 in 2022. Wins has attempted to put the blame for the drop in enrollment on everything from the Covid-19 pandemic to falling birth rates.
VMI’s Inclusive Excellence plan whose focus was pushing “diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice” on cadets was based on the One Virginia Plan which claimed that, “Inequity is rooted in America’s foundation.”
Not only is the institution erasing historical components from its own legacy but the staff has apparently turned a blind eye to it with one faculty member going so far as to declare, “We really aren’t military. I have a bird on my shoulder – doesn’t mean anything – just I am a field professor, so – compare us more to the University of Maryland than a military academy.”
DEI training is being used as a cover-up for teaching critical race theory (CRT) at VMI with videos like “White Like Me: Race, Racism, and White Privilege in America” which claims that “white privilege” is “built into the very foundations of the country.” A separate video, “Disarm Hate” uses the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando to “demand LGBTQIA equal rights, fight the NRA and challenge America’s obsessions with gun violence.”
While it appears that DEI and CRT are running rampant at the institution, critics of Wins’ new woke policies are speaking out through the Spirit of VMI PAC with Glenn Youngkin’s election as governor bringing hope for a return to militaristic values and education at VMI. Meanwhile, Wins has been publically defending his VMI budget that includes extensive spending on “equity” telling a critic, “You have no understanding of DEI or what it means, or how much of the funding for DEI is represented in our request.”
Wins has gone on to also blame the drop in enrollment on “ideological differences among a divided alumni base” although the division is not among the alumni but rather between current and potential future cadets and Wins’ woke agenda and CRT curriculum.
In another failed attempt to shift the blame for alarmingly low enrollment figures Wins went on to say, “Misinformation regarding our initiative for diversity, equity and inclusion and the thought, the notion, the misinformation about the institute and what it’s doing or what it’s not doing with critical race theory is certainly having an impact, we believe.” This from the superintendent of an institution whose DEI resources have a direct link to “anti-racism resources” to be used as a “resource to white people.”
It is heartbreaking to see the institution that produced Marshall, Patton, and Byrd giving in so easily to the left’s woke agenda and critical race theory curriculum that has all but erased American history and now the legacy of the Virginia Military Institute. Where does it stop?
EDITOR'S NOTE - The drop in interest in USAFA is due to woke policies and vaccine mandates, not Covid.
Applications for admittance to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs dropped by about 20 percent for the latest incoming class of cadets compared with application numbers seen before the coronavirus pandemic.
A total of 8,393 people submitted applications to be part of the academy’s class of 2026. Ultimately, 1,071 were admitted into the military institution.
Col. Arthur Wayne Primas Jr., the academy’s director of admissions, said approximately 10,600 people applied in the years leading up to the rapid spread of COVID-19. He attributed the drop largely to the academy’s decision to stop in-person recruiting for much of the pandemic. That meant recruiters did not visit high school college fairs or recruit at youth STEM competitions. It also meant the academy’s largest recruitment event, known as its Summer Seminar, was held only virtually for two years...
To read more visit CPR News.
