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DEI Poisons the Air Force Academy

Posted on Monday, January 29, 2024
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by Outside Contributor
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By: Scott Sturman

Air force academy with dei written in clouds

I came to the Air Force Academy (AFA) in 1968 from Wyoming, where my hard scrabble ancestors homesteaded in the 1800s. Wyoming’s residents were predominately rural, white, patriotic and claimed the highest per capita participation rate of members of the armed forces during World War II.

The Air Force Academy became my window to the world, where I had the opportunity to meet and interact with fellow cadets from every state in the union. They represented a melting pot of races and ethnicities, all with unique experiences and perspectives, who were united by the desire to serve our country.

In this highly competitive, merit driven system, our class withstood and ultimately surmounted the challenges of this physically, psychologically and academically demanding environment. The key to surviving this cauldron of unrelenting pressure required classmates to band together as one entity, who knew no other identity than being members of the class of 1972.

Now over 50 years since graduation, the Academy’s administration has abandoned the ethos that prizes ability over appearance, unity over division, and service over self. Critical Race Theory and its ideological step child, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, form the institutional mechanisms to prioritize division based on identity politics at the expense of cohesion and trust.

In January 2023 on the Friday before Martin Luther King Day, a Cornell educated economics instructor at AFA, addressed some of her white male students as White Boy #1, #2, and #3, since in her opinion, all whites looked the same. Women and minority cadets were addressed by their formal surnames. The instructor’s overt and inexcusable use of racist terms has never been adequately explained by the academy administration, nor is it known if she received a reprimanded or her contract terminated.

This humiliating experience of White Boy #2 is not an isolated event. While attending a mandatory leadership class, his professor, an Air Force colonel and former AFA Preparatory School Commander, asked him to explain his white privilege. To the young man’s credit, he explained that he, like all of the other cadets in class, was privileged to attend the AFA and have the opportunity to serve his country. The colonel apparently was unpersuaded by his response and awarded White Boy #2 a “C” in her class in which no formal tests are given.

White Boy #2’s experience is the tip of the iceberg. On a daily basis, cadets are subjected to intimidating indignities solely because of the genes transmitted to them by their parents. Marginalization and discrimination based on phenotype and sexual orientation are the first steps in the dehumanizing process that destroys morale and leads to rationalizing immoral behavior.

Since antiquity military campaigns have depended on morale, courage, cohesion, and trust of combatants waging war. General George Marshall noted that morale is the key to victory, and Napoleon stated it is the most important factor that determines an army’s effectiveness. Eisenhower remarked, “Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.”

Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day Speech highlights the paramount importance of unity and trust among soldiers that are called upon to give their lives to overcome insurmountable odds. Denying the band of brothers and sisters these sustaining values and substituting them with the decisive and misguided principles of Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ensures the destruction of the armed forces.

Scott Sturman is a distinguished graduate from the Air Force Academy, where he majored in aeronautical engineering and serves as the Class of 1972 class president. He flew helicopters in the Air Force, attended medical school, and practiced medicine for 35 years.

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Max
Max
8 months ago

Shows how bad that WOKE and CRT has ruined the military.

Dan Young
Dan Young
8 months ago

DEI and similar garbage like Affirmative Action are labels that some justify to discriminate against a certain segment of People to reward other classes of people that do not qualify for a position because of merit, or past achievement! Back in the early 70’s I was not hired by State Police even though i scored on testing at the top because they were hiring minorities in spite of low test scores! I might add I did get hired by a Suburban Police Department obtaining Deputy Chief , 2nd in Command of a department of over 75 personnel! I had a Bachelor of Science in Police Administration and no Criminal History at time of application! I support Dr. Martin Luther King’s, “ Person should be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin”!

David Millikan
David Millikan
8 months ago

The Air Force Academy is a Disgrace pushing that Communist DEI, CRT garbage and it will cost American lives weakening our military even more which is Dictator Beijing biden’s intention to give our enemies a Bigger advantage. Look how fast Dictator Beijing biden turned San Francisco into Communist China with ALL of the Communist China Flags covering its streets for his Communist buddies.
Was the Air Force even protecting US?
DEI, CRT garbage is intentional to Weaken and Destroy the United States of America.
This garbage would NEVER happen with President Trump.

Dave
Dave
8 months ago

As a retired USAF veteran (1982-2003), this breaks my heart. My best memories are of the “togetherness” of my brothers and sisters on the flight line. We didn’t care about skin color or sexual anything. We worked together and played together. I guess not anymore.

dfd
dfd
8 months ago

DEI and BLM and Hamas poison everything and all are interrelated.

Nathan
Nathan
8 months ago

ex-mil here from more than 50 years ago. We all depended upon each other. Anyone sabotaging this is a traitor or a fool.

Gabe Hanzeli kent wa
Gabe Hanzeli kent wa
7 months ago

and you wonder why people are not joining the military.

you leftists are just kind of stupid.

Tim
Tim
8 months ago

Frankly, those cadets who were overtly insulted and discriminated against should have stood up and left that racist class. What is even more important is their fellow cadets didn’t stand up for their fellow cadet airmen. So much for camaraderie and loyalty to the Air Force. The Academy Commandant needs to resign. So glad I got out before it became mandatory for me to hate and not trust men and women I would rely on to cover my six

Gary Metzinger
Gary Metzinger
8 months ago

Amen!
 those who don’t agree with our constitutional principles, should take this opportunity to leave our country. Share their philosophies and values with China, Russia, North Korea, Iran et al. We don’t need them. They’re not worth the powder to blow them to hell.

Rich
Rich
8 months ago

Division, lies, hatred and corruption. Socialist/Marxist democrats doing what they do best. The masters of the blame game and destruction. My heart goes out to those in the military that truly want to serve with honor. God will once again raise up our military under President Trump. MAGA.

Barbara
Barbara
7 months ago

Thank you for sharing this poison being taught in the military. It is sad because the truth is we are all brothers and sisters. We are born in different families with differing trials and challenges. The military leadership who teach this are unfair, prejudice and disrespectful. God bless our soldiers.

Joe
Joe
7 months ago

My brother graduated from the USAFA Class of ’82. Back then, the phrase “Bring Me Men” was displayed on the side of an “overpass” in the Cadet area and since then it was removed due to political correctness. My brother explained that the phrase came from a poem that described moral character/intestinal fortitude and NOT gender superiority. Nevertheless, some snowflakes got offended and the words were removed from public view. One would expect this crap to take place at liberal “institutions of indoctrination,” but not at a service academy.

Jackie
Jackie
7 months ago

I’m seriously concerned about our military!! I know that we still have a lot of the “go get ’em” kind of guys but we seem to be going to the point of allowing men to identify as women into the military just degrades our ‘what once was’ a awesome military!!! DEI and CRT and Affirmative Action are all programs that have or are doomed to fail!!! Their purpose is to gain recognition for a group of people just for being that group of people!! Would you hire a guy to fix your car just because of the color of his skin or hair or what he is wearing?? Wouldn’t you want to know that he has some working knowledge of an engine?? Credentials means something other than skin color, hair color, color of their nails, religion, country of origin, sexual preferences or any other personal issues!! I feel like the next thing that Democrats are going to be screaming about is more for the illegals – give them jobs over the citizens??

Sonder
Sonder
8 months ago

Hooah!

anna hubert
anna hubert
7 months ago

What can immature insecure weak leadership possibly produce Not cohesive functioning effective unit but fragmented divided falling apart wreck Just like the Big chief in command of it all

Donald K Dalton
Donald K Dalton
7 months ago

All of this is very unsettling, to say the least. I fear war is coming for us all sooner rather than later. A very unsettling thought keeps coming to me: as we seem to be less and less prepared will we be forced to use nuclear weapons when we will otherwise be losing said war? This woke b/s is not helping keep us safe.

Chris
Chris
8 months ago

Check out the comment about AFA
DEI poisons the AFA
Read it

James
James
7 months ago

This piece of trash educator should be dishonorably tossed.

Jimmy P
Jimmy P
7 months ago

Democrats destroy EVERYTHING they touch.

Rick
Rick
7 months ago

I served in the Air Force from 1985 to 2018. In the late 2000’s, I attended a sexual assault awareness training program. The MSgt presenting the class stated that her daughter, an A1C, was preparing to deploy to the Gulf region. She related that she was more afraid of her daughter being sexually assaulted than she was of her getting wounded, killed, or captured. I let her know how sad I was for her daughter having to live with that thought.

Casey C Matt
Casey C Matt
7 months ago

Man, America seems so dead set on starting a war with China but consider some issues in that regard. Pilots are advanced based on anything but merit. They have to “check boxes”. One box is “black”, one is “female”, one is “not a believer in God”, and without advancement based on merit but rather appearance you get the expected results.
This is a failure before training is taken into account. I mean you have Chinese pilots being trained on advanced air combat techniques while their western potential adversaries ar being trained on how best to tuck ones junk into a flight suit so as to maintain ones false belief that a man can be a woman……or at least a partial appearance of such insanity.
So,go ahead and start a war with China and we will fare just as well as our battlefield techniqutes have performed for the Ukrainians against the “gas station masquerading as a nation”, Russia. In a couple of years Russia has de militarized the entirety of NATO. Despite the lies of the mainstream media re-telling propaganda from Ukraine intel agencies, the armies of Ukraine have lost soldiers at about a 15-1 ratio and equipment losses are MUCH worse.
But, I bet the Ukrainian soldier knows a lot more about proper pronoun usage than does any Russian soldier…….so there is that victory.
Clown world for sure.

Rawdawgbuffalo
Rawdawgbuffalo
8 months ago

I came across this. You may find this interesting
torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/the-fallacy-of-america-as-a-democracy

Helmuts Andris Feifs
Helmuts Andris Feifs
7 months ago

The AFA’s descent onto madness did not start recently. We should remember that they have a Wicken chapel on site, one of their Supe’s eschewed her uniform and wore sneakers and such, and other nibbles at tradition and rigor. To many people just slept thru these things and now it may be to late to turn the bus around.

Obediah Washmore
Obediah Washmore
7 months ago

75 grad. If someone did that to me, I’d get up and walk out of the class. When they tried to stop me, I’d say, “It’s my white boy privilege not to attend your hateful class.” Then I’d resign and go home.

NIcholas Elder
NIcholas Elder
7 months ago

Another Biden accomplishment! I cannot understand why he hates our country!

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
7 months ago

When I was active duty, we had specific days put aside for command training where topics such as tag outs, electrical safety, or fire fighting were discussed. One of the more “painful” subjects after Tailhook was sexual harassment and sexual politics (the hot button issuesof that day!) which included a government-produced film that was more humorous than instructive. I can imagine how painful it is to sit through today’s training days; probably DEI, transgender rights, white privilege recognition, and proper pronoun usage.

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President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump pray at the altar in the Redemptor Hominis Church Tuesday, June 2, 2020, at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

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