As military addresses diversity, Republicans see another front in culture wars
WASHINGTON — At Fort Bragg, one of the nation’s largest military installations, plans are afoot for its first commemoration of Juneteenth, highlighting the role of the Union Army in emancipation.
The Defense Department recently added a deputy inspector general for diversity and inclusion and supremacist, extremism and criminal gang activity. In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the military to examine extremist activity in its midst and to ask troops for their views. Earlier, Austin had revoked a ban on diversity training for the military, and on Wednesday, he spoke at a Pride Month celebration at the Pentagon.
Its active wars ending, its ranks both smaller and more diverse and its talent needs shifting, the Pentagon is embracing ideas like inclusion and adopting many of the efforts long used in the private sector to recruit and retain women and people of color.
Yet while many inside and outside the military have embraced the effort as overdue, some Republican lawmakers and influential conservatives are mounting an inchoate but increasingly loud protest and promoting the idea that the armed forces are becoming the latest pawn in America’s culture wars.
They have taken aim at a variety of initiatives, including a possible Pentagon plan to increase monitoring of social media posts from service members and the addition of reading recommendations on “white supremacy and systemic racism” to military training guides.
In stoking opposition, those critics say the Pentagon’s policies amount to imposing a liberal, and in some cases unpatriotic, worldview on the armed forces.
“Our military’s strength depends on the unity of our troops and their belief that America is a noble nation,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. “Critical race theory erodes both. Critical race theory and similar ideas teach our troops to obsess over race, and that America is an evil, oppressive country.”
How widely those views are held among service members in an increasingly politically diverse military is impossible to know. Military culture varies by service branches, rank and generations.
But the Pentagon’s leadership says its approach is necessary both to uphold the nation’s values and to assure that it can recruit people with the skills necessary for 21st-century warfare.
“The secretary has been very clear and fairly unapologetic about the fact that we want to get all the best talent that is available from the American people,” said John F. Kirby, a spokesman for Austin.
“If you meet the standards, and you’re qualified to be in the military, and you’re willing to raise your hand and serve this country, we want you to be able to do it and we want you to be able to do it free of hate and fear and discrimination,” he said. “We owe you that.”
Even since President Harry S. Truman integrated the military, Americans have debated whether the services should lead or lag civilian society on social change concerning race, sex and sexual orientation, and the extent to which they are a threat to effective combat.
The newest efforts are driven in part by the participation of some active-duty military members and veterans at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, as well as by a desire to recruit and retain more Americans outside an increasingly narrow list of ZIP codes largely in the South and West. As national security needs shift from brawn to brains, some of the moves reflect the increased demand for science, technology and engineering skills coming from a bigger talent pool.
The problems military women — the fastest growing group of veterans — and people of color face have been well documented for years. Promotions often elude minority officers, sexual assault remains rampant, racist extremism threatens Black and Latino service members. Austin, the first Black defense secretary, has spoken about confronting troops with Nazi insignia at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, when he served there.
For generations, military bases retained the names of disgraced Confederate officers — even after the military was racially integrated — the Ku Klux Klan was known to recruit just outside some installations. African American and Hispanic service members are more likely to be court-martialed than white service members, according to the Government Accountability Office.
After years of battles over their role in the military, women continue to face workplace impediments and worse while serving.
Sexual assault cases have barely budged over the past decade, drawing the impatience of lawmakers who are now seeking to remove a general’s role in adjudication of assault cases. Students nominated by Congress to the military service academies remain disproportionately male. There is a continued fight in the Army and beyond about fitness standards for women.
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