A Florida congressman and Army veteran is leading a push to end a Biden initiative on equity and inclusion that he said has created division within the military and weakened U.S. forces.
Republican Rep. Cory Mills cleared the first hurdle in a bid to eliminate the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion as the GOP pushes back over what they call "woke" policies from the administration.
"There's too much time being spent on the ideas of correctly identifying pronouns than prioritizing things like increased lethality, readiness and being properly equipped," Mills told Fox News Digital.
"Personally, from my contacts that are still in the military from when I was there, from some of my contacts who were working over at West Point and the military academies, that our military has been continually weakened because of this focus on diversity, equity and inclusion."
Mills' amendment to this year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would disband the committee, which was created after a 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden with the goal of promoting "diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility" in the federal government. A House Foreign Relations markup of the bill has been sent to the full House to debate.
Criticisms of an ideological agenda in the military come alongside the worst recruiting crisis in more than half a century.
HOUSE GOP MOVES TO SLASH PENTAGON DEI BUREAUCRATS: 'MASSIVE VICTORY FOR THE ANTI-WOKE CAUCUS'
Mills, an Army veteran who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has been one of the lawmakers leading the charge against "woke" military policies, arguing that U.S. adversaries remain focused on readiness.
"This whole push towards being able to out-pronoun our enemies, to be able to out-he/him, she/her, they/them, I can tell you is not what the priorities are of our adversaries like China and Russia," Mills said.
Mills amendment calls for the advisory committee to "terminate not later than September 14, 2024" while also mandating the secretary of defense to submit a report to the Armed Services Committee and entire House of Representatives detailing what, if any, benefit DEI initiatives have to strengthening the military within 90 days of the bill passing.
The Florida lawmaker argues that the military's recent focus on diversity and inclusion has actually done the opposite of its stated goals, creating division in the ranks and threatening large consequences for future readiness.
"We're going to have record-low retention levels, record-low recruitment levels, and you're not going to have the volunteer force that we once had under the previous administration," Mills said. "You're not going to have proper readiness to be able to combat or try and mitigate the impending and upcoming threats that are occurring."
US MILITARY OFFERED ‘WOKE’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSES ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY
The amendment is part of a broader effort by GOP lawmakers to push back against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the military, with Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., boasting last week that this year's NDAA fight will be "a massive victory for the Anti-Woke Caucus."
"We passed my amendments slashing DEI bureaucrats, banning race and gender quotas in military recruiting and promotions, reinstating unvaccinated service members fired by the Biden administration, and shutting down the Navy’s drag queen digital ambassador program, and we passed provisions to defund critical race theory courses at West Point and our service academies, [fired] the chief diversity officer at the DOD and [ended] drag shows at our military bases," Banks said after the vote that sent the military spending bill to the House floor for a full vote.
The Banks amendment to the NDAA says the defense secretary "may not appoint to, or otherwise employ in, any position with a duty described in subsection (b) a military or civilian employee with a rank or grade in excess of GS–10 not adjusted for locality."
Banks said GOP lawmakers intend to root out "woke" politics from more than just the military, noting that several spending bills yet to come are opportunities for lawmakers to eliminate the "agenda" from every federal agency.
"Joe Biden is trying to transform America by forcing his far-left, woke agenda into every federal agency," Banks said. "My goal is for every major piece of legislation we pass this Congress to look a lot like the NDAA."
TOP ARMY OFFICIAL BLAMES ANTI-WOKE RHETORIC OF RIGHT FOR SEVERE RECRUITING CRISIS
"The 12 appropriations bills, the farm bill, the FAA reauthorization all should defund and eliminate wokeness from the federal government," he continued.
Both sides of the debate have blamed each other for the ongoing U.S. military recruiting crisis, which has seen all branches of the military struggle to attract enough recruits to fill the ranks. The Army has been particularly hard hit by the crisis, falling 15,000 recruits shy of its recruiting goals last year. While Army leaders have expressed optimism that they are turning the tide, they still expect to fall short of their targets in 2023.
One reason for that, according to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, are critics who have charged the military with being "woke." In multiple media appearances this month, Wormuth said the branch is "a ready Army, not a ‘woke’ Army."
"I think one of the things that we see that’s contributing to a decline in trust in the military is a concern on both sides of the aisle about politicization of our military leaders," Wormuth said during one appearance.
"I think the more our military leaders are sort of dragged into spaces that have been politicized like that, I think the more it contributes to this perception that they’re political when they really aren’t," Wormuth added. "So, I hope that we don’t see more of the kind of talk that’s been out in the past few days."
But according to Mills, the current leadership has shifted the goalpost from blaming the COVID-19 pandemic to blaming its critics.
"Congressman Mike Alford … pointed out that we spent tens of millions of dollars on studies of White supremacy only to find out that of the entire United States military, less than 100 actual cases existed," Mills said. "When we highlight these things, as a member of Congress under Article 1, our role is to be a steward of taxpayer funding."
"We need to be identifying these things and calling them out," Mills added. "They try to say we are politicizing it when in fact it is actually many of our woke generals, our secretary of defense and the secretaries of the individual forces who are politicizing it by pushing an agenda."
