By Elaine Donnelly
STARRS Board of Advisors
Founder and President of the Center for Military Readiness
On February 16, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14091 – a sweeping mandate that pushes “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) mandates to unprecedented extremes.
As CMR has explained in this Policy Analysis, EO 14091, titled “Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” bestows special status and benefits for favored minorities while excluding others who do not belong to “underserved communities.”
- CMR Policy Analysis: Biden Executive Order Empowers Permanent Diversity Industrial Complex
Layered on top of three similar directives since January 2021, the EO multiplies and muscles up Executive Branch diversity-crats, making their power bases virtually permanent.
Biden’s gratuitous power grab expands the entire federal government’s infrastructure of highly paid DEI officials, consultants, and experts in woke ideology.
And it was launched without any credible evidence of “systemic” racial discrimination in the United States. Why now?
Apparently, the administration is trying to get ahead of a pending Supreme Court decision, expected in June, which could end discrimination in higher education. At issue are two cases challenging racial preferences at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (Harvard/UNC).
The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), are representing higher-scoring Asian and white students who sued the private and public schools for discriminatory admission policies.
Department of Defense and military educational institutions are not parties to the case, but as CMR reported here, the Defense Department has argued in favor of discriminatory admission policies at Harvard and the UNC.
In oral arguments last October, Justice Department Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar admitted that the military relies on discriminatory policies that maintain racial “diversity” at the military service academies and in ROTC (contract) programs. Prelogar also claimed without evidence that discriminatory policies to achieve “equity” are essential for national security.
No one knows whether the Court will buy that argument, but a group called Veterans for Fairness and Merit (VFM) filed an amicus brief arguing that racial preferences are not necessary or “critical” to the military’s ability to defend the Nation.
Even if the Supreme Court rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, that doesn’t mean all discrimination will stop. As John B. Daukas noted in this Wall Street Journal article, even after the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, some school districts kept discriminating.
Biden’s Defense Department sees the writing on the wall. If the Supreme Court decides that racial discrimination in higher education is unconstitutional, the administration will scrutinize the Justices’ opinions to find loopholes and ambiguities that distinguish their own discriminatory practices from those of the defendants in the Harvard/UNC cases.
The pending Supreme Court ruling also explains Executive Order 14091. As stated in this CMR Policy Analysis, with a stroke of his pen Biden established a powerful new Diversity Industrial Complex designed to continue racial discrimination, no matter what the Supreme Court says.
Biden’s Bigger Government
The scope of Biden’s EO 14091 is limitless. It establishes Equity Action Teams throughout the federal government – from the Departments of Defense and State to Transportation, Education and Energy, plus agencies like the Social Security, Small Business, and International Development Administrations.
All DEI Teams are required to implement an “ambitious, whole-of-government approach to racial equity,” and all will report to a White House Steering Committee headed by diversity doyenne Susan Rice.
The EO also expands an existing corps of Chief Diversity Officers. CDOs are empowered to review all promotions, making sure that all candidates support discriminatory “equity” benefits for “underserved communities.”
Section 10 defines “underserved communities” with a paragraph-long list that includes Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native Americans, LGBTQI+ persons, rural and U.S. territory residents, persons with disabilities, those affected by persistent poverty, and many others.
Conspicuously missing from that list of favored groups are healthy white males who are young or middle age, financially secure, Christian, and English language proficient.
“Equity” is not the same as “equality,” especially when an EO authorizes color-conscious decisions about which individuals and groups should receive government preferences and grants related to everything from “climate change” and “artificial intelligence algorithms” to “community wealth building” and transgender treatments for vulnerable children and adults.
Deliberate discrimination against non-minorities, in pursuit of ideological goals, squarely fits the definition of woke-ism:
Progressive policies taken to extremes with coerced compliance, even if it hurts the institution.
Military Cultural Values Under Attack
Biden’s power grab will affect all Americans, but its consequences will be most severe in our military. Outcome-based “equity” mandates that treat some people as “more equal” than others weaken mutual trust, unit cohesion, and the selfless warrior ethic that inspires troops in battle.
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, combat veterans Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) and Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, USA(Ret), warned that discriminatory directives focusing on skin color or other superficial characteristics are threatening essential elements of military culture: color-blindness and non-discrimination.
Rep. James Banks (R-IN), Chairman of the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, also has stated that the Pentagon must retain fundamental respect for meritocratic values.
The Need for Congress to Intervene
The U.S. Constitution should be the ultimate guarantor of equal protection under the law, but the issue remains unresolved. A future President may restore sound priorities, but Congress has the power of the purse and the constitutional authority to make policy for the military, right now.
Members of the 118th Congress should initiate a two-pronged attack, starting with efforts to defund the Diversity Industrial Complex, which has become something of a racket.
Following Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s mandatory anti-extremism stand-downs in 2021, an investigation found less than 100 cases of “extremism” in the ranks. A recent RAND study searched for offensive speech in Air Force social media posts, but found almost none.
The Daily Caller reported that the Air Force is hiring DEI officers at salary rates ranging from $82,000 to $183,500 per year, even though numerous studies have questioned the efficacy of “anti-bias” training.
Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Jim Banks are sponsoring legislation to cap the salaries of Defense Department DEI officials at $31,000. This makes sense, since the job market for DEI professionals already is drying up. Better yet, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) are re-submitting legislation to abolish Pentagon DEI advisors and Chief Diversity Officers across the board.
Equity v. Meritocracy
Support for meritocracy in the military is even more important. Non-discrimination policies that recognize merit often create diversity, but the constantly repeated woke mantra “Diversity is a strategic imperative” undermines meritocracy as a cultural value.
Section 10 of EO 14091 defines the term “equity” as “the consistent and systematic treatment of all individuals in a fair, just, and impartial manner, including individuals who belong to communities that often have been denied such treatment…”
The phrase “all individuals,” however, is misleading. The clear intent of EO 14091, from its title to its glossary, is to elevate group rights above individual rights. The EOs’ wiggle words may have been inserted to inoculate the directive against charges that it violates principles of equal protection and is therefore unconstitutional.
EO 14091 also claims that its mandates are “permitted by law” or “consistent with applicable law.” But there is a catch. The government wants to continue discriminating.
When individuals file lawsuits challenging discriminatory practices, the government will claim that the absence of any law forbidding such practices authorizes them to continue what they have been doing all along.
Deceptive words cannot neutralize the tenor and context of the entire DEI program, which aims to achieve “racial equity” for favored “underserved communities.” This belies any hope that excluded non-minority groups will be treated equally.
Absent congressional action, meritocratic values – essential elements of military culture that are under attack – could be lost in a single generation.
Members of Congress should seek bi-partisan support for efforts to defund and eliminate DEI power bases, mandates, and practices, while codifying principles of meritocracy and non-discrimination in military personnel policies.
A successful two-pronged approach could be a breakthrough accomplishment, leading to more positive actions that could break the back of the Diversity Industrial Complex.
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First published on CMR: DEI Executive Order Expands Diversity Industrial Complex
Later published on The Federalist
The Center for Military Readiness is an independent public policy organization that reports on and analyses military/social issues.
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