Chris Lange, FISM News
The Department of Defense has been slapped with a lawsuit for allegedly teaching controversial critical race theory at its military academies.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint against the DoD on Tuesday over the alleged implementation of critical race theory (CRT) in the training of naval recruits. The prominent conservative legal watchdog group filed the suit after the Defense Department failed to respond to a FOIA request made in August of 2021 for PowerPoint presentations and emails related to CRT, according to a press release.
Judicial Watch said it found “over 700 pages of documents” exposing CRT instruction at a West Point cadet training program. One PowerPoint slide allegedly included a graphic title “Modern-Day Slavery in the USA,” according to the release. Other documents denouncing “whiteness” were also reportedly discovered.
The group cites a Federalist report that the Navy “issued an instructional video training its members to create a ‘safe space’ by using ‘correct’ pronouns. The video further instructed service members on the use of “inclusive languages” and to avoid “misgender[ing] others.”
“Marxist Critical Race Theory and its racial division have no place in the Naval Academy, which is training the next generations of Navy leadership,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That the Pentagon has been unlawfully hiding these records for a year suggests something awful is afoot.”
The suit follows a recent report that the U.S. Army has suffered an alarming drop in military recruitment. Every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to meet recruitment goals, according to an NBC report. Meanwhile, the National Guard and Army Reserves recently cut off more than 60,000 military members for refusing COVID-19 vaccinations.
The Pentagon has been heavily criticized for its focus on progressive issues of gender and race instead of prioritizing military readiness at a time when the U.S. faces heightened tensions with Russia, China, and other nuclear-capable adversaries.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was grilled on the subject by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this month.
“Do you believe that any member of the military should be treated differently based on their skin color and sex?” Cotton asked.
“No, I do not believe that and that is why we have diversity, equity, and inclusion focus in the military,” Austin responded.
Texas GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, said during the hearing that he had received “several hundred” messages from service members frustrated with the DoD’s progressive “extremism,” saying it has sown division among military personnel and taken critical time away from military training.
Austin argued at the time that the U.S. military remains “the most lethal organization on the face of the planet,” and that “it will remain so.”