By Michael Poliakoff and Karrin Taylor Robson | AZ Central
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy admonished:
“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country. Without such knowledge, he stands uncertain and defenseless before the world, knowing neither where he has come from nor where he is going.”
His words ring true for all of us — but above all for the men and women of the armed forces on whom, throughout history, our nation’s future has depended.
It is this concern that made it urgently important for Matt Lohmeier, John Cauthen and Karrin Taylor Robson to write “Civic Education in the Military.”
This new report, published through the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University, details the troubling replacement of informed and patriotic civic education in America’s military academies.
Divisive and sometimes hostile perspectives, informed by critical race theory and executed by diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucrats, now permeate the military.
Military academies teach about our divisions
This report shows that, worse than ignorance, today’s service members are being taught that America’s historical flaws are its essential character.
Many now believe that — contrary to our country’s motto, “E Pluribus, Unum,” or “Out of Many, One” — we are permanently divided by our immutable characteristics.
At the U.S. Naval Academy, for example, faculty are encouraged to read Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and the books of Ibram X. Kendi, who advocates discrimination against white people to remedy past discrimination against Black people.
Students at West Point and the Air Force Academy can minor in diversity and inclusion studies. Air Force Academy students are expected to complete DEI training before even setting foot on campus.
DEI offices at these academies promote “affinity groups” based on identity. Students are taught to report one another for private conversations that violate DEI orthodoxies via “eyes and ears” programs.
The ascendancy in our military academies of critical race theory, which holds that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions, and DEI, which purports to address these inequities, is a clear and present danger.
DEI training increases distrust, animosity
What passes under these headings is a cynical view of the American polity as a permanently racist, exploitive society.
As the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote:
“DEI officials have a vested interest in ensuring that the grievances of identity politics continue lest the offices have no reason to exist … they promote racial division rather than redress it.”
Even proponents of DEI increasingly acknowledge that most DEI trainings increase, rather than alleviate, distrust and animosity.
America’s military officers must understand American history, its glories and its failures, in their proper context: the unfolding of the great promise of a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
It is only when Americans hold fast to the meaning of their history, that we stand a chance to ensure that our democratic principles “shall not perish from the earth.”
We’re safer when the military knows what to defend
Our military service academies have a foundation, a core curriculum from which to shape the mind and character of college students.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s What Will They Learn? survey awards three of them a rare and coveted “A” rating for it. Within that core, they properly require a course in either United States government or history to graduate.
In this, our nation’s military academies are ahead of the vast majority of American colleges and universities.
But that is not enough. The academies work at cross-purposes with themselves if they fill these courses with critical race theory and DEI, or otherwise bombard students with such perspectives.
President George W. Bush had it right: “Our history is not a story of perfection. It’s a story of imperfect people working toward great ideals.
“This flawed nation is also a really good nation, and the principles we hold are the hope of all mankind. When children are given the real history of America, they will also learn to love America.”
We are a safer America when our armed forces have in their hearts and minds the value of what they defend.
DEI ill serves this goal. It has no place in our military academies or anywhere in our military.
Michael Poliakoff is president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Karrin Taylor Robson is an ACTA board member and Arizona small business owner who ran for governor in 2022. On X, formerly Twitter, @PoliakoffACTA and @ktaylorrobson.
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