The Biden-Harris Defense Department has allocated millions in taxpayer dollars to external organizations to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the military, as revealed by documents from the Functional Government Initiative.
These initiatives include programs that provide race and sex-based preferential hiring to improve career pipelines for non-white candidates and women in STEM.
Critics argued that this focus on DEI detracts from military readiness and may harm recruitment, ultimately jeopardizing national security.
EXCLUSIVE: the Pentagon paid millions for consultants to implement DEI policies in the military—and advise bureaucrats on how to crack down on dissent. New from @SpencerLndqst:https://t.co/hQBUZJcdPe
— Tim Rice (@timerice1) August 2, 2024
“The U.S. and its allies are facing challenges and threats all over the globe. Despite the increased concern for military preparedness, the DOD continues to prioritize DEI initiatives,” FGI spokesman Peter McGinnis said.
“Rather than maximizing readiness training to ensure a capable military, the DOD’s training seems calculated to foster sowing internal discord with aggressive efforts to promote controversial ideologies,” McGinnis added. “Americans join the military to serve their nation and protect the homeland, not to sit through sensitivity training. The DOD owes them better.”
The Defense Department has engaged various academic institutions and consulting agencies to design training and policy frameworks aimed at promoting DEI while addressing internal resistance to these initiatives.
These actions reflect a broader push by the Biden administration to embed DEI practices across federal agencies, with considerable funding requested for these efforts through 2024.
“Across organizations, a resistance to DE&I is growing, while discriminatory and xenophobic expressions are increasing,” the RAND Corporation’s report states. “Some researchers describe the presence of ‘denial perspectives’ and ‘diversity defiance,’ or ‘White fatigue,’” the report went on to say before cautioning the Defense Department to “watch for” these perspectives “and exercise caution to guard against them.”
In response, former President Trump has promised to dismantle such programs if re-elected.
