Statement to DACODAI by Carol Greenwald, PhD
To: General Lester L. Lyles (USAF, Ret.), April 21, 2024
Chairman Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (DACODAI)
From: Dr. Carol Greenwald, PhD Columbia
Re: Written Submission for DACODAI Meetings (May 2-3, 2024)
Dear Chairman Lyles,
DACODAI’s notice dated April 2, 2024 indicates that members of the public may email written statements to osd.mc-alex.ousd-p-r.mbx.dacodai@mail.mil, which, if timely submitted, may be considered by your Committee’s membership prior to its May 2-3, 2024 meetings. In accordance with that notice, please include this statement as part of the record for your upcoming meeting and supply it to committee members.
Speaking as a civilian with no military experience I want to state my firm and clear stance regarding our military. I absolutely expect that our military focus all its efforts on just one thing and that is it’s mission– to be prepared to fight and win our Nation’s wars. I do not want our military to be distracted by social engineering, politically driven programs like “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI).
You may know that many states, corporations, and some educational institutions are backing away from their DEI programs as they are learning that by its very nature DEI is Divisive as it divides people into identity groups, primarily along racial lines, and pits them against each other. That approach is juxtaposed to fostering teamwork and cooperation which any organization must have in order to be successful.
As a civilian I can easily see that of all the institutions in the United States, our military is the one institution where teamwork is the most critical due to the dependency on each other for their lives and for the protection of our country.
As a doctoral graduate of Columbia University, I am appalled and ashamed at what the faculty and students are doing. They are products of decades of DEI indoctrination where identity group ideology is infused into them, a victim and oppressor relationship is emphasized, critical thinking is not taught, censorship of ideas is absolute, and hate fomented. Such schools are incubators for antisemitism and we now see students and faculty from such schools supporting terrorism, carrying Hamas flags, and chanting “from the river to the seas” along with other such vile statements. Gen Lyles, this is a product of DEI which is a spin off from Critical Race Theory (CRT) and that ideology is firmly rooted in Marxism. This example is what you get from DEI.
We cannot allow our military to be fragmented by DEI, as is happening in other places. I urge you to look outside the military at what DEI is doing to our Nation in examples like above. We cannot go down that Divisive road in our military which has operated successfully for decades based on equal opportunity and meritocracy. It is time to close the books on DEI and get back to a single focus on warfighting readiness.
Carol Greenwald
PhD, Economics, Columbia University
STARRS Board of Advisors Member
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