Issue 70: February 2023

This edition of CMR E-Notes breaks new ground with original research, reporting, and analysis of issues that have turned the All-Volunteer Force into today’s “woke” military. In January CMR took the lead with a Challenge to Congress for 2023, which was well received by members of the new House and Senate who are ready to confront woke-ism in the military.

Focusing on one of the ten woke issues on the CMR Challenge list, the Center for Military Readiness compared Obama-era military transgender policies with significant revisions that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has imposed since 2021.

This op-ed, published by Real Clear Defense, summarizes our latest CMR Policy Analysis of policies affecting persons who identify as transgender or suffer from gender dysphoria:

Elaine Donnelly: Biden Pentagon Quietly Expands Woke Transgender Policies in the Military

This edition of CMR Notes also examines the philosophy of Kelisa Wing, the Diversity & Inclusion chief in the Defense Department’s school system. Wing has tried to downplay her radical woke views and writings, but we took a closer look and the results are disturbing.

CMR also is looking at the potentially destructive impact of President Biden’s February 16 Executive Order (EO) imposing deliberate discrimination on all government agencies, including the Department of Defense.

To stay on top of all these public policy issues and more, and to continue influencing policymakers in the right direction, CMR needs your help! Please consider making a generous tax-deductible contribution by clicking here. Thank you for supporting our uniformed men and women in this important field of public policy.

-- Elaine Donnelly

A. House/Senate Bills Would Neutralize Expanding Military Transgender Policies

Americans who are concerned about national security have much to worry about. Instead of conveying the clear message that America will not tolerate threats against our territory, including Chinese surveillance in plain sight, the Pentagon seems focused on woke social mandates.

CMR’s latest comprehensive Policy Analysis reveals that the issue of transgenders in the military is being quietly pushed to new extremes, even as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and other military officials keep denying or defending woke policies in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” (DEI)

CMR Policy Analysis: Biden Pentagon Quietly Expands Woke Transgender Policies in the Military (8 pages)
CMR: Biden Pentagon Quietly Expands Woke Transgender Policies in the Military (4-Page Summary)

In preparing this original policy analysis, CMR compared the 2016 Barack Obama/Ashton Carter transgender policy to the current, recently updated Joe Biden/Lloyd Austin transgender policies, noting at least six significant changes that have been made incrementally since Biden took office in 2021. In summary, the Biden policy:

Changes official DoD vocabulary to reflect transgender ideology;
Specifically involves the military service academies and ROTC (contract) programs;
Holds commanders directly responsible for all alleged “biases against transgender individuals;”
Allows cross-dressing and other “transitioning” behaviors on-base as well as off-base;
Allows “de-transition” procedures if treatments do not resolve gender dysphoria; and
Restricts collection and disclosure of data on “incidents of harmful behaviors” involving sexual orientation and transgender persons.

As with all woke policies in the military, these mandates impose progressive ideologies and take them to extremes with enforced compliance, even if it hurts the institution.

Despite denials and dissembling about what is going on, DoD documents cited by CMR are becoming more extreme. “Harmful behaviors” are likely to increase, but the DoD has signaled it will not acknowledge them publicly without high-level permission.

The only beneficiaries of these policies likely will be transgender treatment providers, including Planned Parenthood, especially if the DoD and Veterans Administration extend transgender treatment coverage to military dependent children and veterans. This article reports on the lucrative business that Transgender, Inc. has become:

Daily Caller: ‘Lucrative Business’- The Child Sex Change Industry Is Exploding In The US

Some Good News: Key leaders in Congress are stepping up to address this issue. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) together with co-sponsors Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC) Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and Mike Braun (R-IN) are co-sponsoring the Ensuring Military Readiness Act of 2023. On the House side, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), the new Chairman of the House Armed Services Sub-Committee on Personnel, is sponsoring a similar bill.

As stated in this Summary, the Ensuring Military Readiness Act would recognize that “The DoD has always taken the physical and mental characteristics of individuals into account when determining eligibility for service.” With exceptions for certain people identifying as transgender but who serve in their biological sex, the bill “Disqualifies any individual who identifies as transgender or seeks or has already undertaken gender reassignment surgery.”

In addition, the bill “Requires the [Defense] Secretary to change how DEERS (Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System) works to only allow biological sex to be taken into consideration for gender markers . . .” This proposal reflects common sense, not ideological theories that attempt to deny biological realities.

The military’s expanded military transgender policies that CMR has analyzed in depth indicate they affect the entire institution – not just a few individuals. We appreciate the members of Congress who are stepping up to meet this challenge and will keep you posted as events unfold.

B. DoD Education Activity (DoDEA) Diversity Chief Tries to Disavow Woke Policies

Top Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee are questioning the philosophy and attitudes of self-identified “woke administrator,” Kelisa Wing, who was appointed to head the Diversity & Inclusion office of Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools. The DoDEA educates approximately 67,000 military dependent children and is the largest school system in the world.

On January 30, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) and HASC Personnel Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Austin, taking issue with Ms. Wing’s radical views, abrasive statements and writings promoting divisive elements of critical race theory (CRT). The letter also asked for more information about Ms. Wing’s activities and instructional materials that promote “the exclusion, denigration, discrimination of any individual or group of people on account of race or ethnicity, critical race theory, or culpability of any living person for historical actions.”

Ms. Wing recently responded to the lawmakers’ letter by disingenuously claiming that a series of her tweets and published comments disparaging white people didn’t count because she was speaking only as a private citizen and not on the job. Wing also tried to disavow her own role in writing a series of glossy polemic booklets for elementary school students titled “Racial Justice in America.”

CMR reviewed three of the six booklets in the Racial Justice series, titled “What is White Privilege,” “What is the Black Lives Matter Movement?” and “What is Anti-Racism?” This is a brief analysis of excerpts from the 32-page color-illustrated booklets, written by separate authors “with Kelisa Wing” as their “Content Advisor.”

CMR Analysis: Racial Justice in America – A Series for Grades 4-6

As the excerpts show, the booklets constitute entry-level CRT indoctrination for elementary school children. Each of them misleads students with half-truths, prejudicial stereotypes, CRT-influenced history lessons that misrepresent or omit essential facts, and disparaging comments about America’s Founding Fathers and documents such as the U.S. Constitution.

As Christopher Rufo explains in his article, Racism in the Name of “Anti-Racism,” diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are closely tied to critical race theories defining America as a “racist nation divided between white oppressors and minority oppressed.” He adds that “Society, using the logic of ‘anti-racism,’ must actively discriminate against the oppressors in order to achieve social justice.”

It is difficult to imagine a more destructive philosophy in the military, an institution that depends on unity, not division. And the exposure of military dependent children to toxic CRT ideology is worse than in civilian schools, since the messages conveyed could confuse children and cause them to question why their own parents are serving in defense of a nation that they learned in school was founded in “racism” by white supremacists.

Such teachings also could worsen the ongoing recruiting crisis, since misinformation about the character and history of America could alienate students who are more likely than others in that age group to consider military life.

According to Open the Books, a non-profit government watchdog, 11 DoDEA schools carried 45 copies of the Racial Justice series booklets in their libraries. Since the entire Pentagon seems to be in the grip of woke “anti-racist” groupthink, it is up to Congress to act.

C. Woke-Ism in Defense Department Schools – What Can Congress Do?

The Department of Defense runs DoDEA schools, and DoD policymakers are accountable to Congress. Kelisa Wing is part of the problem, but as Open the Books reported, her superiors at the DoDEA and the Pentagon have described her as “exactly the right person” to do the job.

In the 117^th Congress last year, several members offered amendments to halt CRT instructions in DoDEA schools, and Sen. Marco Rubio teamed up with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to publish a clear call for action:

Woke Warfighters: How Political Ideology is Weakening America’s Military

In the new 118^th Congress, Rep. Roy and others plan to press the issue again:

Daily Signal: Bill Aims to Block Federal Funds from Schools That ‘Indoctrinate with Critical Race Theory’

In addition, members should consider and pass legislation to strengthen military parents’ rights of oversight over their children’s education. Last year, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) sponsored a “Parents Bill of Rights,” which would have strengthened the rights of military parents. Rep. Stefanik’s bill passed with a 39-19 bipartisan vote in the House Armed Services Committee and again on the floor. (Similar legislation sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was defeated in committee on a 13-13 tie vote.)

However, House/Senate negotiators watered down the Stefanik amendment, turning it into a “Sense of Congress” resolution, not binding law. Congress should revisit the issue in 2023.

If Congress passes a law protecting parents’ rights to oversee their children’s education, civilian parents would be supported in their demands to do the same.

D. The DoD Diversity Industrial Complex

When the government makes a major policy change, it is fair to ask, “cui bono?” The primary beneficiaries of President Joe Biden’s new “Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government” will be a small army of highly paid diversity-crats CMR has described as the Pentagon’s Diversity Industrial Complex.

The Wall Street Journal and the Daily Caller have recognized an ideological “conveyer belt” from academia to the government’s Diversity Industrial Complex. President Biden’s extreme DEI mandates, which go beyond reality-denying transgender training programs, have now installed Domestic Policy Assistant to President Biden and close Obama ally Susan Rice as Chairman of a new White House Steering Committee on Equity.

Rice’s Steering Committee will coordinate a vast bureaucracy of diversity-crats in every government department and agency. It is not clear whether these new power bases will be layered on top of existing offices, such as the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (DACODAI), chaired by Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles, USAF (Ret.). Gen. Lyles also chaired the 2011 Military Leadership Commission (MLDC), which changed the paradigm by disavowing “color-blindness” and pushing the military toward its cultural woke-ism today.

Regular meetings and reports from the Steering Committee will implement detailed action plans favoring every racial, sexual, demographic, and “underserved community” group there is. Conspicuously left out are white, heterosexual, able-bodied Christian men and boys.

Biden’s all-encompassing Executive Order for “diversity” and “equity” calls for “equitable outcomes,” not equal treatment. Mandates will be enforced by a network of Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs), who will be empowered to make or break a person’s career based on factors such as sex, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, or skin color. Political support for the administration’s DIE/CRT/LGBT agenda also will be essential for promotion.

America First Legal has vowed relentless opposition to the order, noting that Biden’s Equity Czars’ coordination of hiring, promotions, and benefits for favored groups will not exclude non-citizens. Efforts to “advance equity for all” inevitably will result in unfair discrimination against individuals who do not belong to one of the favored groups specified in Biden’s order:

New Racist Biden EO Installs Equity Czars in Every Federal Agency and Converts Entire Exec Branch into Woke DEI Cult: AFL Vows Relentless Opposition

The order also includes a new tool for race-based discrimination: a special mandate banning discrimination in artificial intelligence (AI) systems. (Section 8) “Algorithmic discrimination” is banned, unless it is used in a manner that advances “equity.”

According to this thoroughly researched article, “Diversity, Inc.” is a growing industry offering high-paying jobs.

Thomas Hackett, Real Clear Investigations: The Sudden Dominance of the Diversity Industrial Complex

President Biden has “created” more diversity-crat jobs and “LGBT Pride” event organizers, even though a recent RAND study that was supposed to “prove” the need for DEI professionals in the military found little evidence of extremism or “hate” in the Air Force:

Micaela Burrow, Daily Caller: Shocking: Study Finds Air Force Members Are Not Racist on Social Media

The DEI professionals are nevertheless working hard to make work – for themselves. The entire enterprise, which could do great harm to non-minorities in the name of “anti-racism” or “equity,” has become a racket that Congress and the next President should bring to an end.

* * * * * *

The Center for Military Readiness is an independent public policy organization, founded in 1993, which reports on and analyzes military/social issues. More information is available at www.cmrlink.org. Tax-deductible contributions to CMR can be made by clicking here.

Articles of Interest: