Despite a growing recruitment crisis in the United States Air Force (USAF), the branch still seems more focused than ever before on artificially boosting “diversity” with numerous “equity” and “inclusion” initiatives.
As Just The News reports, Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Brown, who is African-American, has openly promoted so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) efforts, claiming back in 2020 that DEI would become a major pillar of recruitment efforts and would play a role in promotions under his command.
The Air Force’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force was first launched in September of 2020, and Brown played a role in the opening of the Air Force’s DEI office. On his watch, the official Air Force website now includes numerous materials and pages describing “unconscious bias” in the military.
But the push for DEI is not limited to the Air Force. Most of the other branches of the U.S. military have similarly pushed for such forced “diversity” efforts since Joe Biden took power.
“Shortly after assuming office, Biden signed three separate executive orders directing all federal agencies to commit extensive time and resources towards Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts,” said Thomas Spoehr, an expert on national security with the Heritage Foundation.
In December of 2020, the Air Force published a report titled “Independent Racial Disparity Review,” which claims to highlight examples of racially-based preferences in the Air Force.
“Specifically, black service members were 74% more likely to receive Article 15s and 60% more likely to face courts-martial than white service members,” the report claims. “The primary offenses where the difference could be seen were: willful dereliction, failure to go to/leaving from appointed place of duty, making a false official statement, and drug-related offenses. Data alone cannot provide insight on the cause of the racial disparity in Air Force discipline, and further analysis is required.”
Amidst the push for more race-based policies, the Air Force, like most other branches of the military, is facing a recruitment crisis. In March, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall admitted in a speech that active-duty Air Force is projected to miss its recruiting goal for 2023 by at least 10 percent.
“We are swimming upstream against a reduced propensity to serve nationally across the board and a limited percentage of qualified candidates,” said Kendall. Many have speculated that the increased preference for minorities and frequent lecturing on “discrimination” have turned off many would-be recruits.
This lack of “qualified candidates” is one of the great cop outs of all time. In 1986 I hopped in a van with three other dudes to head to a military installation to get physicals for ROTC scholarships. At the end of the day I was the only one who passed. That’s on the extreme end but I can count off a number of Gen-X friends who were turned down by the military or just never bothered because of health problems and drug/alcohol convictions. This excuse is getting old.