In Military Bill, Congress Mulls Putting Anti-DEI Protections Into Law

Just like the rest of the swamp, the Pentagon is woke. And now, there is legislation to try and fix it. Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana is leading the efforts to amend next year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the Pentagon, to include anti-woke reforms to the military. If Banks’ amendment passes, it would ban “invented and identification pronouns” at the Pentagon, end required DEI training, and codify a Trump executive order to replace diversity messaging with merit messaging on military job boards.

President Donald Trump was reelected with a mandate to root out leftist ideology from our government. In large part, the president has taken action to fulfill that mandate—he ordered that every diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucrat be fired, reversed several radical Biden executive orders and proclamations, and enacted many anti-woke policies at the Department of War. However, the president alone can only do so much. Legislation passed by Congress brings permanence — so the Marxist ideology will stay out no matter who is in the White House next.

The Pentagon has long suffered from the woke mind virus. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, who received a blanket autopen pardon from Biden in his final moments in office, famously said, “I wanna understand white rage” in a congressional hearing after being confronted about classes at West Point teaching cadets about white rage and white power.

Under the Biden administration, the military’s fitness test standards were lowered in order to accommodate “gender diversity.” The Army also put out an animated ad featuring a future cadet with two lesbian moms marching at a gay “pride rally” with the goal of “shatter[ing] stereotypes.”

The good news is that this problem is getting attention in Washington. But even if Banks’ amendment were to pass, there are still significant hurdles to winning the war on woke. In red states across the country, we have seen legislation passed ending DEI and critical race theory in universities only for it to be rebranded and left in place. Leftist ideology never left higher education; it just got a little better at hiding.

The rot runs deep, and leaving the arsonist in charge of putting out the fire is careless and naive. Legislation might be a good first step, and it would be a morale boost for conservatives to actually see Congress address the real issues with legislative solutions. But the Pentagon, like nearly every other facet of government, needs to clean house and eradicate the career bureaucrats. Rank-and-file soldiers love our country — literally to the point of risking their lives for it. They do not deserve haughty leaders with an excessive number of ribbon bars lecturing them about their whiteness or “misgendering microaggressions.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has done a great job of this, firing more than a dozen longtime military officers. In typical fashion, however, the Republican old guard was quick to complain. In fact, Republicans joined Democrats in adding a provision to the NDAA that would require the Pentagon to inform Congress when senior military officers are going to be fired. To many Republicans—even in deep-red states—maintaining the status quo is more important than Trump and Hegseth’s fight to restore the military to its warrior ethos.

Hegseth has said that the military needs to prioritize “warfighting over wokeness.” Ridding the military bureaucracy of political correctness, quotas, and left-wing ideology is essential. Passing Banks’ amendment is the first step of many in doing that. The next step is to continue the purge of the people responsible for implementing leftist garbage at the Pentagon in the first place.

Cass Rutledge is a senior attending Ole Miss, where he serves as the Chairman of the Ole Miss College Republicans. Follow him on X @CassRutledge.