WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Military Personnel, today addressed reports concerning woke practices at the U.S. Air Force Academy, including reports that students were instructed not to use gendered language like the terms “mom” or “dad.”In a video, Gallagher said, “To all our service academies, I would just say you might want to pump the brakes on hiring, you know, five new ‘DEI professors’ or creating new DEI departments…Because I guarantee you when Congress is controlled by Republicans, as it will be in the new year, we’re going to push back on this and expose this ideology for the distraction from war fighting that it is.”The video comes after Rep. Gallagher joined Rep. Michael Waltz and Sen. Lindsay Graham in requesting an immediate briefing on these woke practices from the U.S. Air Force.Watch the congressman’s video HERE or read the full transcript below:
“Over a year ago, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the Armed Services Committee, and he was asked about the fact that at West Point, they were teaching students — as part of an overall series of lectures on diversity, equity inclusion — they were teaching kids about white rage at West Point.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs responded at the time somewhat indignantly, he said, ‘I find it personally offensive that anyone would accuse the US military of being woke.'”Well, since then, we’ve had so many instances of fringe, woke ideology appearing not just in service academies, or in war colleges, but on the frontlines in the military, including out in the Indo-Pacific. And now the latest is a report that at the US Air Force Academy, they are instructing students not to use gendered language. And not just gender pronouns, but they’re telling them not to use the words mom and dad, because that could somehow be offensive.”
That’s crazy. And regardless of what side of the woke divide you find yourself on — I personally think wokeism is dangerous and at minimum has no place in our military because it’s divisive and based on just garbage social science — you cannot deny that this is happening. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs cannot sit there and say, there’s nothing to these accusations of wokeism. Look at what’s happening at the US Air Force Academy.
“So to all our service academies, I would just say you might want to pump the brakes on hiring, you know, five new “DEI professors” or creating new DEI departments. Oh, yeah, and by the way, the Air Force Academy is now offering a minor in diversity and inclusion, so they’re actually going more woke than most American universities. Pump the brakes on that, because I guarantee you when Congress is controlled by Republicans, as it will be in the new year, we’re going to push back on this and expose this ideology for the distraction from war fighting that it is.”
