Yesterday’s Capitol Hill hearing on progressive ideologies in the military originally had two witnesses, Matt Lohmeier and Will Thibeau.
At the last minute, the Democrat side of the committee brought in as their witness retired Army Brig. General Ty Seidule, former head of the history department at West Point (where he taught for 20 years), author of the book, “Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause”, and proud member of the DOD Renaming Commission.
The General was rather shockingly naive and unaware in his statements about the radical leftist agenda push in the military and service academies and seemed to be living in a bubble. It appeared he was hearing for the first time the facts that Matt, Will and other Republican politicians were presenting.
For example, he didn’t know the different between equal opportunity and equity (the “E” in DEI). See here.
He said that West Point was not teaching Marxist-rooted Critical Race Theory (CRT), even though so much has been written on this in the past three years, including over 600 pages from FOIAs. See all articles: https://starrs.us/category/west-point/
But the biggest shocker was something Matt brought up about the General’s influence on a 40-page “anti-American, race-baiting, communist screed” that a group of West Pointers wrote right after they graduated, accusing West Point of being institutionally racist. The paper references throughout– as justification for their CRT beliefs–articles and lectures by their history professor, Gen. Seidule.
As background, during 2020 graduation week, several Black Cadets in the 2020 graduating class raised concerns on the state of racism within the Corps of Cadets to the Superintendent.
Shortly following graduation, a group of nine left-wing 2018 and 2018 USMA graduates wrote the paper titled “An Anti-Racist West Point,” and sent this paper to The Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Army and USMA leadership. Within days of its distribution, it went viral and the paper circulated on social media outlets.
“This is a call to action. The United States Military Academy has not taken the necessary strides towards uprooting the racism that saturates its history. We are calling upon West Point and its leadership to redress three major failures:
1. Systemic racism continues to exist at West Point.
2. Anti-racism is not part of the curriculum at West Point.
3. The conditions for an anti-racist space are not present at West Point. . . . .
Note that according to CRT, it’s not enough to not be racist, you must actively be an “anti-racist” and go along with their CRT agenda–or you are a racist. (See our Resources for many sources to help explain CRT)
In July 2020, USMA Superintendent LTG Darryl Williams directed the Inspector General Office to conduct a special inspection following this complaints of racial misconduct at West Point.
The inspector found:
- There are no structural barriers to reporting EO complaints
- There are inaccurate perceptions about handling of misconduct, discipline and honor cases for minority Cadets
- Black Cadets tend to earn lower Military Development grades than their White counterparts
- There was no evidence found of institutional racism
Watch Matt refute the General’s statement about CRT not being taught at West Point:
The Anti-Racist Proposal was signed by 9 members of the USMA Classes of 2018 & 2019, not the Class of 2020.
I’ve added the clarification. The IG report on page 7 says several black 2020 cadets raised concerns, then later a group (not specified) wrote the paper. The paper does list themselves as 2018 and 2019 grads.