On Tuesday, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) sent a letter to Secretary of the Air Force (SECAF) Frank Kendall regarding the Air Force placing an emphasis on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives over national security.
Rep. Gaetz’s letter calls on Secretary Kendall to eliminate the DEIA working group, which puts a disproportionate focus on DEI and social-experimentation programs within the Air Force — seemingly at the expense of the department’s core mission of preserving national security. The letter also highlights the department’s success in achieving staffing and recruitment goals during President Donald Trump’s administration and expresses that the overemphasis on DEIA initiatives has been contributing to recruitment challenges under President Joe Biden’s leadership.
Full text of Congressman Gaetz’s letter to Secretary Kendall can be found HERE. Additionally, exclusive coverage of the letter by Gateway Pundit can be found HERE.
LETTER TEXT
Dear Secretary Kendall:
I write to express concern over the Department of the Air Force (DAF) Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, (DEI) and Accessibility (DEIA) Strategic Plan for calendar year 2023. Throughout Northwest Florida, my constituents have voiced concerns that the DAF has placed an overemphasis on DEI initiatives through numerous policy memos that neglect to mention or prioritize the DAF’s core purpose for existence: preserving national security.
Under former President Donald Trump’s 2020-21 recruiting policies, the DAF hit its staffing and recruiting goal. Contrast that with last year under the Biden Administration, where the Army, Navy, and Air Force fell short of their recruiting goals. The DAF is a key contributor to the misapplication of defense priorities, with DEI memoranda that send command signals to recruit a certain number of Americans based on superficial characteristics, like race or sex. According to your memo, the DAF sought to recruit in FY 2022 8.5% black men, 4.5% black females, 6.5% Asian men, and 0.5% Native-American females:
Unfortunately, the recruiting numbers would suggest a failure of DEI and social-experimentation programs. Your policies have resulted in numerous recruiting shortfalls of a historic manner; for example, the recruiting numbers from FY 20224 and FY 2023, were some of the weakest recruiting numbers in the history of the DAF. Additionally, the public has observed the politicization of the DAF, resulting in waning public sentiment and trust in the military as an institution.6 Furthermore, you compound your overemphasis on DEI by creating the DEIA, which stated goal is:
It is quite telling that throughout the 18-page DEIA policy document containing over 5500 words, “combat” is only referenced once, “national security” is referenced zero times, and “merit” or “merit based” is referenced zero times. The document establishes working groups using acronyms for each subcategory of ethnicity:
The working-group analytics team assesses every possible angle DEI could contemplate, except whether an emphasis on DEI could have a negative impact on military recruiting and retention. The failure to even consider this as a possible result in the “wokeification” of the DAF shows a clear disregard for the objective truth.
I respectfully request that your team step back and reflect on the current state of the DAF. With the swearing-in of General C.Q. Brown as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I can only imagine these misguided Air Force policies, ushered in under your tenure, will quickly find “adherence” and “compliance” in the other services, leading to further erosion of their standing and the entire reputation of the Department of Defense (DoD).
Therefore, I am formally requesting that your office eliminate the DEIA working group. Please do not just rely on the standard DoD echo chamber that will reaffirm the status quo. Rather, please take this moment to steer the DAF back toward an America-first outlook that removes the social-experiment element from the DAF and reorients the team toward addressing the threats of our near-peer adversaries.
Sincerely,
Matt Gaetz
Member of Congress
