By Jake Smith | Daily Caller News Foundation
Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks is probing the Air Force regarding documents pointing to the branch’s “race and sex quotas” in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) officer’s applicant program, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Internal documents and slideshows from 2022 obtained by the DCNF last week showed that the Air Force had set a “goal” to reduce the number of white males in the ROTC’s officer’s applicant pool and set targets for reaching a specific amount of numbers for other racial and gender groups.
Banks pressed a high-level Air Force official on Tuesday to answer questions regarding the Air Force’s recently updated standards and what benefit it provides to solving the branch’s recruiting problems, which have worsened in recent years.
“The Biden-Harris [Department of Defense’s] use of race and sex-based quotas is un-American and it should be illegal,” Banks told the DCNF in a statement on Tuesday. “Republicans must work to put merit back at the center of our armed services.”
The slideshow, created under the Biden-Harris administration’s leadership, depicts a graph where the Air Force hopes to “achieve” a white male population in the ROTC officer applicant program reduced to roughly 43% by fiscal year 2029, down from 60% in fiscal year 2019.
The documents also showed how the branch wants to do more to hit other racial or gender-based quotas in the applicant pool, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to be spent on diversity promotion campaigns.
The documents were first recently obtained Center To Advance Security In America (CASA) through a lawsuit after the Air Force previously claimed it had not records on the matter. CASA subsequently shared the documents with the DCNF.
“The American people are rightly concerned that, at a time when our country is facing dangerous and increasing threats throughout the world, the Air Force is focused on recruitment efforts based on arbitrary racial diversity goals — not merit or increasing the force’s lethality,” James Fitzpatrick, director of CASA, told the DCNF last week.
The documents also included 2022 email correspondences between U.S. officials regarding a request from Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Alex Wagner, who at the time wanted to know “specifically what we are doing for and the timeline to meet goals for each specific demographic, for example, black males, white females, etc.”
Banks had previously urged Wagner during a congressional hearing in 2023 to avoid recruitment efforts based on racial or gender standards, and Wagner replied that he would “commit… to do everything possible to reach the broadest segment of America,” the Republican congressman’s Tuesday letter says.
Given the recent revelations of the 2022 Air Force internal documents, Banks pressed Wagner to answer how setting race and sex-based targets in the ROTC officer applicant program would reach Wagner’s goal of “reach[ing] the broadest segment of America,” as well as why the branch would set such targets when it is already struggling with recruiting goals.
“It is difficult to understand how the Air Force could aim to cut recruiting of Americans who don’t check the right demographic boxes during the worst recruiting crisis in the history of the All-Volunteer Force,” Banks told the DCNF in a statement.
Like several branches of the military under the Biden administration’s guidance, the Air Force has fallen behind with recruiting and retention standards.
The Air Force, along with the Marine Corps and Army, are on track to meet those targets this year but had missed them in 2022 and 2023, according to the Military Times. The Navy is expected to fall short of its recruiting goals this year.
Only roughly 57% of service members or military families polled by the Military Family Advisory Network in 2023 said they’d recommend joining the service, down from 74% in 2019.
Among some of the reasons the respondents wouldn’t recommend service were the politically charged nature of the military, differences and divisions, and low pay.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Banks Probes Air Force’s Race, Sex Quotas for Officer Applicants (Jim Banks Press Release, 24 Sept 2024)
Today, Rep. Jim Banks (IN-03), Chairman of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee announced his probe into the U.S. Air Force’s apparent use of race and sex-based quotas for its officer applicant pool.
Find a copy of Chairman Banks’ letter to Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Alex Wagner here.
Said Rep. Banks:
“The Biden-Harris DOD’s use of race and sex based quotas is un-American and it should be illegal.
It is difficult to understand how the Air Force could aim to cut recruiting of Americans who don’t check the right demographic boxes during the worst recruiting crisis in the history of the All-Volunteer Force.
Republicans must work to put merit back at the center of our armed services.
It is the right thing to do and it is the only way we will be able to compete with Communist China.”
Rep. Banks submitted amendments to the 2025 NDAA to end affirmative action at service academies and prohibit the consideration of race in military accessions.
The full text of the letter is below:
Dear Mr. Wagner,
I’m writing to you regarding the United States Air Force’s apparent use of race and sex quotas for its officer applicant pool.
On August 9, 2022, the office of the Secretary of the Air Force (SECAF) sent a memorandum titled “Officer Source of Commission Applicant Pool Goals.”
The memorandum sets race and sex quotas, referred to as “Diversity & Inclusion goals,” for commissioned officer applicants to the Air Force at a proportion of 64 percent male and 36 percent female, 67.5 percent white, 15 percent Hispanic, 10 percent Asian, 14 percent African American, 1.5 percent American Indian/Native Alaskan, and 1 percent Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, and directs Air Force leadership to develop a plan to reach these goals within 30 days.
Air Force documents from 2023 recently obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) show that, in response to the August 2022 memorandum, the Air Force developed even more granular race and gender quotas.
For example, a slide that was presented to the SECAF as part of its “Office Accession Applicant Pool Goals D&I Outreach Plan” includes a graph that shows white male ROTC officer applicants declining from about sixty percent in 2019 to a goal of approximately 43% by fiscal year 2029.
Internal Air Force email correspondence obtained by the DCNF suggest that you personally advocated for presenting the SECAF with a specific timeline for implementing these quotas.
An email relaying your feedback on the draft “Applicant Pool Goals D&I Outreach Plan” slide deck reads: “Mr. Wagner would like to know specifically and what we are doing for and the timeline to meet goals for each specific demographic, for example, black males, white females, etc.”
Another email shows that efforts were made to delay the briefing “to give us more time to meet Mr. Wagner’s intent.”
At a 2023 House Armed Services Committee Military Personnel Subcommittee hearing, I asked you if you would personally commit to opposing any effort to promote or recruit servicemembers based on their race or gender.
You responded that, “I will commit to you to do everything possible to reach the broadest segment of America, whether it means increasing the number of women in our force or people of color, and I commit to you that we will continue those efforts, to have a more diverse force.”
Please respond to the following questions no later than October 20, 2024:
- How does reducing the proportion of white male ROTC applicants by seventeen percent in ten years compatible with your stated goal of “reach[ing] the broadest segment of America”?
- Why would the Air Force advocate for reduced recruiting of certain demographics while it struggled to meet its recruiting goals?
- What is the difference between the “Diversity & Inclusion goals” you set and race and gender quotas?
- Do you believe that race- and sex-based discrimination should be tolerated within the United States Air Force?
Sincerely,
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