The Pentagon’s education wing for the children of military members – the Department of Defense Education Activity – privately announced that it was gutting an entire unit devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion as Republicans mounted pressure, criticizing what they said was a “woke agenda” in the military, Fox News Digital uncovered.
DoDEA’s director, Tom Brady, said he will be dispersing the DEI specialists into existing units as part of a “reconfiguration of talent.”
The DEI unit was created after Biden directed all federal agencies by executive order to “establish or elevate Chief Diversity Officers,” among other priorities. A few months later, Kelisa Wing was selected to lead the DEI unit, and involved in curriculum, professional development and hiring.
Less than a year after her promotion, Wing was placed in a six-month government probe after Fox News Digital reported on her tweets, which were criticized as “racist” and hostile to White people.
Matt Gaetz, R-Fla, asked why Wing was not fired, calling her “the racist person that works for you.”
The Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness – Gil Cisneros – was responsible for determining the outcome of the Wing probe. He said no disciplinary action would be brought against Wing since it “determined the employee was speaking in a personal capacity.”
The Pentagon told Fox News Digital in a statement, explaining why it was disbanding the unit, that, “The Department of Defense Education Activity’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts for our employees and in support of high achievement for our 67,000 military-connected students remains unchanged.”
“Department of Defense DEIA Strategic Plan, DoDEA reconfigured within the headquarters staff to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion expertise into key areas to continue addressing barriers to inclusion, closing gaps in representation, and incorporate the institutional insights we have gained over the past two years,” a spokesperson continued.
According to the email announcing the dissolved DEI unit, existing DEI specialists will be placed into other units to further entrench a DEI agenda in every aspect of the Pentagon’s schools.
“Within the next month, we will integrate our DEI specialists into four key divisions at headquarters: Research, Accountability, and Evaluation; Strategic and Organizational Excellent; Professional Learning; and Human Resources. This will bring specialized knowledge and skills into areas that reach across our agency and aid in addressing barriers to inclusion, closing gaps in representation, and incorporate the institutional insights we have gained over the past two years,” the email said.
Cisneros had previously claimed in a letter to Congress that Wing was involved in a restructuring, and that she was no longer involved in “DEI-specific responsibilities.” When Fox News Digital followed up, pressing to confirm that Wing – a DEI specialist – was not involved in DEI, it refused to provide additional information relating to personnel matters.
According to sources, Wing continues to be listed as DEI internally.
The Pentagon’s Cisneros was forced to read one of Wing’s posts verbatim at last Thursday’s hearing, which said, “So exhausted at the White folks in these PD sessions. This lady actually had the caudacity to say Black people can be racist, too. I had to stop the session and give the Karen the business. We are not the majority. We don’t have power.”
Gaetz proceeded to criticize Cisneros for failing to answer what he believed were basic facts relating to the investigation.
“What does ‘Caudacity’ mean?” Gaetz asked.
“I have no idea,” Cisneros said.
“You took six months to investigate one tweet. You didn’t even figure out what the words meant?” Gaetz asked. “I think every person that’s going to watch this exchange knows, you know, it’s she’s trying to lash audaciousness with someone being Caucasian, isn’t she?”
“I have no idea,” Cisneros said. “We do not support racist tweets. We do not support racism.”
The decision to gut the DoDEA DEI unit was made as Republicans in both the Senate and the House Armed Services committees have criticized the Pentagon for ramping up DEI efforts as recruitment numbers dwindle, failing to meet critical targets.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), said last Wednesday, “The military’s purpose is to fight and win—not crusade for social causes. As a combat veteran, this is personal to me… Our adversaries are watching.”
“If President Biden wants to know why he has a recruitment problem and low morale, he need look no further,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had said about the report on Wing’s posts.
Rep. Chip Roy, Texas, and Sen. Marco Rubio, Fla., released a report entitled, “Woke Warriors,” documenting examples of “critical race theory” in the military. One of the examples included Wing’s posts about White people.
While she was chief, Wing’s “antiracist” book collection was placed into DoDEA school libraries, leading to pushback at recent House Armed Services Committee hearing. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) alleged Wing illegally promoted her materials in her capacity as a government employee, including at an official meeting.
The Pentagon previously denied Wing was involved in selecting her books for DoDEA schools.
“White privilege hurts a lot of people. If you are White you might feel bad about hurting others or you might feel afraid to lose this privilege,” Wing’s book “What is White Privilege?” said.
It also said, “Overcoming White privilege is a job that must start with the White community.”
“[W]ill you really feel good at the end of the race when you look back and see others fighting obstacles that you didn’t even have?” the book added.
The Pentagon’s eduction wing appeared to endorse books written by Wing, praising her for “authoring several books on the topic” of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Cisneros denied knowledge of Wing’s books in DoDEA schools.
“You seem to not know a lot of what’s happening in the department,” Stefanik said. “So my expectation is that we’ll continue educating you on what’s happening in the Biden administration, Department of Defense. But this is absolutely unacceptable. We expect that report and I will take it as a result that we delivered, making sure that she should have been fired completely, but she was at least moved somewhere else, not dealing with our kids educational system.”
Fox News’ Patrick Hauf and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
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