(Casey Harper, The Center Square) President Donald Trump on Monday announced he was firing the boards for the military service academies, citing an infiltration of “woke” ideology.
When President Joe Biden took office four years ago, he removed Trump appointees to the same boards.
“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial, his social media site. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump and his allies Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency and Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense have vowed to eradicate DEI.
Trump has signed executive orders shutting down DEI funding and eliminating DEI staff, one of a flurry of orders as he trims federal spending and entanglement with progressive ideology around gender and race.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies have become widespread in the military, including the Pentagon and service academies.
As The Center Square previously reported, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, released a report during the Biden administration highlighting several examples of DEI policies in the military funded by taxpayers.
In one example, investigators discovered a slide show created for the Air Force Academy called, “Diversity & Inclusion: What it is, why we care, & what we can do.” The same presentation cautions cadets against using gendered language, including words like “mom” and “dad.”
The report also points to broad trend of critical race theory teaching at academies across military branches. For example, the report points to training materials lecturing West Point cadets on white privilege.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff defended teaching CRT at U.S. Service Academies and testified to Congress about his desire to understand ‘white rage,’” the report said. “He argued that American taxpayer money should be spent to ensure cadets and midshipmen learn what ‘caused thousands of people to assault [the Capitol] Building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States.’ The Biden Administration is choosing to focus on and fund the study of racial extremism even when – as the [“Countering Extremist Activity Working Group] showed – it is a virtual non-issue in the military.”
