America's Talking - Air Force Embraces DEI as Recruitment Falters

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

The U.S. Air Force has become increasingly focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, and critics say it is hurting recruitment. Chief of Staff of the Air Force Charles Q. Brown has been a major backer of the DEI efforts. Brown said in the fall of 2020 that DEI was a key focal point of recruiting and a factor in promotions. The Air Force launched a Diversity and Inclusion Task Force in September 2020. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to American Focus, powered by the Center Square. I am Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is the Center Square, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Harper, we are recording this on Friday, July 7th. Casey, this week you wrote a bit of an enterprise story about recruiting problems in the military and what might be behind those problems. The Air Force in particular has had issues meeting its annual recruiting numbers. for a couple of years, you wrote about the increasing amount of attention of focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts inside the military and specifically the Air Force and how that might be hindering them. Why don't you give us a summary of your story? Yeah, that's right. I mean, so there's kind of two things going on here. The first, which is always front and center

at the center square.com, is the taxpayer angle. And so that was the first goal in this enterprise story, as you called it, is to say to just, I'm always trying to tell Americans how their tax dollars are being used, especially when it's a way that I think might surprise them. And then the secondary thing going on here is, as we get into how the Air Force is spending a lot of money on DEI, diversity, equity inclusion. The second thing is, is this hurting recruitment, you know, the experts I've seen and I, you know, talked to one for the story, say yes. But let's get into first, what's going on here. So as you said, the Air Force is increasingly, struggling with recruitment. So it fell short of their 23 recruiting goals by 10%. But this is not like a 1%

or 2% or, you know, hey, we're on the edges. I mean, a 10% shortfall in one year is no small thing. And so this is not like we're nitpicking an issue here. And this comes from Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. He said, we are swimming upstream against a reduced propensity to serve nationally across the board and a limited percentage of qualified candidates. Now, there is a lot, there are a lot of things going on here. Recruitment is complicated. I mean, on, you know, I've heard some research on how obesity, the obesity epidemic is really hurting the military because there's so many, such a large and increasingly large percentage of Americans are obese, they actually can't even join the military until they lose weight and get in shape. Yeah. I saw that and that was, that was concerning.

I saw that note or that data in your story and that is concerning. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot, there is a lot going on here and I want to admit that. But what we are seeing, especially in the last few years, I'd say since 2020, is a major increase in how much the Air Force talks about diversity, equity, inclusion. And the question that we may not have a clear answer to it now, but the question is, does focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion, transgender rights, LGBT rights, you know, how the Air Force might be racist in the reports it does about itself, does that deter, you know, half the country who might see that as a politically motivated thing? So, you know, Chief of staff of the Air Force, Charles Q. Brown, he's been a major component in this.

He's, you know, top brass there at the Air Force. And in fall 2020, he said the DEI was a key focal point, both in recruiting and in promotions. Right. So they're actually considering race when promoting people and trying to promote certain ethnic groups over others, which you might ask the question if that demoralized. others who aren't being promoted. He launched a diversity and inclusion task force, or the Air Force launched this diversity inclusion task force in September of 2020,

which honestly, these kind of things are happening all over the military and the Pentagon is really pushing this kind of stuff. The Air Force released an independent racial disparity review in December just a few months later in 2020. They talked about the magnitude of the problem. They had a section called the magnitude of the problem where they talked about black airmen be more likely to face formal and disciplinary action than their white peers.

And so, you know, it goes into this, which really insinuates that the Air Force could be a racist institution, which I'm sure you could find plenty of professors and things who would say, of course, it's systemic racism. Of course, the Air Force is racist. It's a large institution in America. All large institutions in America are racist. But, of course, many of our listeners would disagree with this. There's also a lot. It's not just racial, though.

There's a lot on the gender and sexuality. which is just as, or maybe more controversial and politically charged topic right now. So they have guidance on promoting and protecting the human rights of LGBTQI plus persons around the world. And the Pentagon released via the Biden administration really came down strong on this issue and made clear that protecting and promoting the LGBT issue around the world is a key, like, foreign policy goal now. Right. And then there's also like in-service transition guides for, transgender service members. So, you know, in one level, I think it makes a lot of sense for the

Air Force to have these kind of things. I'm sure that there are people who are joining the Air Force who are trying to serve their country who would benefit. But it's not just like a handful of HR documents for people who might need them. This has become a key focus. A primary goal of the armed services is to promote and protect LGBT ideas, people, the agenda around. the world. And we just know from polling, we know from the political scene that we're living in, that the transgender issue in particular is not a widely popular one in the U.S. populace. I mean, the majority of Americans are kind of skeptical of it. The percentage of Americans who see it as a good thing to protect and promote is actually decreasing. And there's probably

a lot of reasons for that. There's been a lot of reporting and a lot of research that's shown, especially for children. Some of these transgender treatments and purity blockers can actually do more harm than good and people end up regretting it when they get older because they were children when it was done. And so I'm not really trying to come down and write a piece saying that the transgender guide is a bad thing. What I'm trying to say is this is still really controversial. In fact, it might be a minority, might have minority support in the U.S. population. And yet the Air Force is doubling down and treating it with the same level of respect that they

might treat the American flag or the ideas in the Constitution, which honestly are things that have been used for decades and hundreds of years to recruit people to join these armed services. People join the military for a lot of reasons, but to protect the Constitution, to do it for freedom, to serve their country, have historically been more of the goals than to promote and defend LGBTI ideas around the world. Right. I mean, let's be clear. There is no room for racism or there should be no room for racism in the U.S.

military in an America in general. There should be no room for discrimination based on sexual orientation in the U.S. military or anywhere else in the United States. Of course, there is. There are racist and there are those who discriminate based on sexual orientation, and that should be eliminated. The concern here is they're taking this agenda way too far, making it a priority, around the world. And this is the U.S. military. I mean, they're charged with defense of our country. And if they're having a hard time meeting recruiting goals, that's a problem.

Yeah, well, the problem they're running into is they're trying to adopt some of the ideas around critical race theory and critical theory generally, which we just laid out. But the problem is if you follow the critical theory thinking back to its origin, it is counterproductive to recruitment because the idea in critical theory is that and is that the United States is an inherently evil racist country, that it always has been, and that all of its institutions are racist and morally bankrupt and that all those institutions need to be either torn down and reinvented or totally overhauled to make them not so systemically racist and rooted in white patriarchal oppression. Now, that is a really popular idea, I think, with, you know, freshman undergrads at liberal arts universities. But it's hard to say

the United States is a fundamentally evil country. Come lay down your life for it. Right. You can't, that's where I think the rub is here that the core root of these ideas is that America is kind of bad and always has been because of slavery and discrimination, but also you have to, you should come and lay down your life for this country. I think a lot of people who do lay down their life for this country and have, believe that the United States has been a force for good, a beacon of freedom, a beacon of light that has been, you know, we defeated the Nazis. We've done all these great things. We did end slavery and helped end it around the world, you know, made our mistakes. But they just have a different view of what America is. I think it's hard to recruit when you say

America's evil, but hey, come die for her. Very good point there, Casey, but we are out of time. Listeners can keep up with the story and more at the center square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McKeel. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe.