Congressman Waltz presses former West Point History instructor to define Equity

(Press Release) On Thursday, U.S. Congressman Mike Waltz (FL-6) questioned Brigadier General Ty Seidule (Ret.), former head of the history department at West Point and House Democrat witness, on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at U.S. service academies and the definition of equity during the House Oversight & Accountability Committee hearing on the Risks of Progressive Ideologies in the U.S. Military.

Watch the full exchange:

“You testified earlier that you have not seen Marxism, Critical Race Theory, you do not know where it is in the military or where it is at West Point. Is that accurate?” Waltz asked Seidule.

“I had not heard of it until it became a national issue,” responded Seidule.

When asked if he was aware of it being taught at West Point, Seidule said he did not.

Explaining what Critical Race Theory is, Waltz said, “The theme is that white people are enraged, not a hundred years ago, not fourty years ago, which you are talking about with the sixties and seventies. It’s today. White cadets, white people are enraged by Black advancement.”

“I think, Congressman, the great thing about education is you can get a variety of different perspectives. It is not training, which is what some of my colleagues have talked about. I am talking about education. You want to hear the broadest representation of every viewpoint,” said Seidule.

“This is the very clever approach of the Left to conflate history with current day training.” Waltz asked, “would you agree that Critical Race Theory is a foundation for DEI?”

“No, I would not,” Seidule said. “DEI goes back to equal opportunity in the early part of the 1970s.”

Waltz went on to ask what the difference between equity and equality is. Seidule did not directly answer the question, so Waltz asked again, “What is equity?”

Seidule responded, “I don’t know what it is, Congressman.”

“Diversity, equity, inclusion is part of everything. There’s a DEI office in the Pentagon… you don’t know what equity is? You can’t testify to what equity means?” Waltz continued,

“Well, I will tell you since you don’t know, it is equal outcomes for all, which is a hallmark of Marxism. DEI is Marxist based, as is Critical Race Theory.”

“Let’s progress since, I mean, apparently, the expert doesn’t know what equity is in DEI,” said Waltz. “I would like to enter in for the record class composition with racial goals for West Point. You just testified under oath you were in the admissions office.”

Seidule responded, “I wasn’t in the admissions office, I was on the admissions committee for one year and I know there were no quotas, is what I said, Congressman.”

“So, we are going to parse over quotas and goals?” asked Waltz.

Waltz then pointed to the document and said, “This is from the superintendent and here are the goals. It has African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Women with percentages. We have ‘red’ here for when they missed those goals.”

Seidule countered that “some athletes are there… and the largest number of people that are recruited at West Point are athletes at 25%.”

Waltz continued, “When you say your directive is to advance one group based on the skin color, you have to take those slots from another group based on their skin color. It’s a zero sum… The athletes get broken down by their skin color in this chart that you just said doesn’t exist.”

“Here’s a memorandum from the Secretary of the Air Force with White, Black, Asian, American Indian. I mean, I think my wife, who is an Army veteran and who is Arab, didn’t have a place, I guess, in this chart,” said Waltz. “Here you have current percentages and a mandate to increase those percentages, you have to take those slots from someone else based on ethnicity.”

Waltz pointed to a poster of the “key proponents of CRT” and summarized the quotes, “What these authors say is that if you are white, you are incapable of not being racist. That in and of itself is racist, sir. By the way, these were lecturers at the Air Force Academy. That is divisive and it’s wrong and it’s destructive.”

Waltz continued, “We have data that shows, as Mr. Lohmeier has testified to, 62% of active-duty military members are seeing a politicized military. 65% would recommend their child not join. Now, we’re in a recruiting crisis. This is why these hearings are so necessary.”

“You are right, Mr. Seidule, in that Congress drives change. This Congress has banned Critical Race Theory in the military in this defense bill, we have eliminated the hiring of divisive DEI bureaucrats.”

“WE are going to drive this change to get our military back to a meritocracy with equal opportunity for all.”

“You cannot fight racism with more racism and you have to have data.”

“Do you have any data that shows that a more or less diverse submarine, bomber, brigade, is more or less lethal?” asked Waltz. “I’m talking about the crew.”

Seidule was unable to answer the question.

“Do you have any data that shows by percentage a more or less, let’s say bomber crew, let’s say brigade, whether it’s fifty percent Black, ten percent Black, thirty percent Jewish, any of these societal factors, data that drives readiness?” asked Waltz.

Seidule was unable to provide the data in question.