During today’s House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing on “Admissions, Curriculum, and Diversity of Thought at the Military Service Academies,” the United States Air Force Academy Superintendent, Lieutenant General Richard M. Clark, was unable to define gender-ideology terms that are promoted on Department of Defense (DoD) campuses when questioned by U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01).
Rep. Gaetz asked, “Do you know what Demi gender really means?”
“I’m not really sure, sir,” Clark replied.
“Right. So do you know what agender means? All one word, not a space gender. But agender?” Gaetz pushed.
Clark replied, “Sir, I don’t.”
“Right. So here we are pushing a fellowship, calling for people that you don’t even know what the words mean. And the number one group of people, the cisgender men are excluded? Not in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. Should we be pushing programs that we can’t define that exclude the largest group of servicemembers?” asked Gaetz.
“Well, sir, first, that program is not an Air Force Academy program. It’s a program open to our entire country,” said Clark.
Rep. Matt Gaetz argues that the Pentagon’s embrace of radical “diversity, equity, and inclusion” practices has left America more vulnerable to its enemies.
Gaetz, in June, appeared on Fox News with anchor Laura Ingraham to explain why he and other Republicans ripped the Biden administration for furthering DEI initiatives, including those rooted in the LGBTQ agenda and Critical Race Theory, at the expense of military readiness.
During a hearing on the new defense spending bill, Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican, proposed a measure to rid the Defense Department of the chief diversity officer posts and all funding to support DEI projects and programs.
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The effort to end the diversity officer posts passed.
Yet Ingraham noted that Gaetz’s push to eliminate all DEI spending failed because two Republicans — Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Mike Turner of Ohio — joined Democrats in voting it down.
Gaetz added that the chief diversity officers make as much as $183,000 a year, which is more than members of Congress.
“If the chief diversity officer is what we need to win wars, maybe we should send them all to the front lines in Ukraine, like now. Get them to Taiwan,” said Gaetz.
Gaetz added that the existence of such programs “dilutes our readiness.”
“While China is focused on AU [artificial intelligence], we’re focused on LGBTQAI+,” said Gaetz. “Every major institution the Democrats have taken over … they’ve destroyed it. And we cannot allow that happen to our military.”
Gaetz added that even minorities have come to him to explain that the embrace of CRT is divisive and harmful to training and camaraderie.
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“We went from ‘Be all you can be,’ one of the greatest slogans of all time, to this embrace of radical gender ideology and radical race ideology,” said Gaetz.
He added that Congress should not pass any spending authorization bill for the Pentagon until lawmakers “uproot all of the wokeness.”
“This was the core covenant we had with our voters to get into the majority,” said Gaetz.
Full Transcript from July 19, 2023:
Rep. Gaetz: A diverse and inclusive force is a warfighting imperative. This is on a slide at the Air Force Academy General Clark, do you agree with that statement?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I do agree with that statement, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: So I mean, were the Mongols diverse?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well, sir, I’m not really as versed on Mongol warfighting is.
Rep. Gaetz: How about the war fighting? Were the Vikings diverse?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Again, sir, I’m looking at our country, the most diverse country in the world
Rep. Gaetz: sure. But this is about a warfighting imperative. How about the fight the force in Ukraine? Are the Ukrainians fighting the Russians a diverse force?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, once again, my concern is the people that I’m charged to build into leaders.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. But you would you would acknowledge that throughout history, including present history, that statement hasn’t born true in every example. Right?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir what I would say is that those countries have to rely on the full force of their population, to build a war fighting to win our wars. And that’s why it’s important for us to be diverse, because nation.
Rep. Gaetz: Let’s look at the population that actually makes up the fighting force frequently. Now we have more men and women, right? 70-30 ish.
Lt. Gen. Clark: That’s correct.
Rep. Gaetz: And of the men we have, most of them are not transgender men. Most of them are cisgender men, right?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Yes, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: But yet, at our academies, we put push something called the Brooke Owens fellowship. Are you familiar with that?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I am. Yes, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: And in that fellowship, it specifically says, If you are a cisgender, man, this program isn’t for you. So you just said that your answer on why we why we do such this, this full hug of these diversity concepts is because it’s all about the fighting force that we draw from, but you’re literally pushing a program in the academies that says, if you’re a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, a non binary, agender, bi gender, 2 spirit, Demi gender, what’s Demi gender?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, that’s a that’s a term of the people that are eligible for that particular scholarship
Rep. Gaetz: But what’s a Demi gender person?
Lt. Gen. Clark: It’s a person who looks at their gender in a in a different, a different way than I do, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: Well, sure. That’s all of these people. You’re a cisgender. Man, you don’t even get to apply.
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well
Rep. Gaetz: Do you know what Demi gender really means?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I’m not really sure, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. So do you know what agender means? All one word, not a space gender. But agender?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, I don’t.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. So here we are pushing a fellowship, calling for people that you don’t even know what the words mean. And the number one group of people, the cisgender men are excluded? Not in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. Should we be pushing programs that we can’t define that exclude the largest group of servicemembers?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well, sir, first, that program is not an Air Force Academy program. It’s a program open to our entire country.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. We allow guys advocate for within the academy.
Lt. Gen. Clark: We allow our cadets to apply for it.
Rep. Gaetz: Why are you allowing your cadets to apply for a program when you cannot define the basic terms of eligibility?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Because it’s an opportunity for us to develop them as warfighters. And we look for every opportunity that we can
Rep. Gaetz: But you don’t even know what the words mean, how can you use this as a way to develop the warfighters? If you don’t know what it means?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Well, some of those could those terms may not be applicable to us at the Air Force Academy, but some are
Rep. Gaetz: But if you don’t know what they mean, it’s hard to tell if they’re applicable or not. So I think one of the reasons why some of this stuff has gotten into the academies is because we don’t have the same oversight from the Board of Visitors and Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record. An article from The Washington Examiner entitled to push woke ideology Biden illegally gutted Military Academy oversight boards. And so in this piece, it goes through a timeline. We’re on September 8, 2021, all of President Trump’s appointees were fired on September 17, Secretary Austin created Board of Visitors subcommittees, and then he populated those subcommittees with people who weren’t on the Board of Visitors. Have you ever seen that happen before?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, our Board of Visitors is populated and and supports us in great fashion.
Rep. Gaetz: Right. What about the subcommittee? Are there people on the board of visitors subcommittees who are not on the Board of Visitors?
Lt. Gen. Clark: I can’t answer that, sir.
Rep. Gaetz: Seems like something we ought to know.
Lt. Gen. Clark: Um, yes, sir. I’m not sure right.
Rep. Gaetz: But that would be odd. Right? I mean, here. I’ll let me ask the question this way. You don’t have any basis to disagree with the reporting here in the Washington Examiner that literally we have people who are not on the board of visitors who are serving on the subcommittee’s you have no basis to disagree with that, do you?
Lt. Gen. Clark: Sir, I’m not exactly sure the question you’re answering asking. I’ll have to take that for record so I can understand exactly what you’re asking.
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