To some, America appears irredeemably racist, bigoted, and guided by hate. In response, many have embraced a “wokening” crusade to perfect American society by transforming its centers of power and influence. This movement seeks to redefine acceptable thought, speech, and behavior by establishing formal structures of control, reprimanding, and publicly castigating dissenters.
The U.S. Naval Academy (USNA), the nation’s premier institution for educating and training future Navy and Marine Corps officers, has now adopted this ideology. Willing collaborators, eager to appease their political masters, are pushing this transformation through directives, policy, training, and the creation of new offices and positions dedicated to advancing the agenda of wokeness. Under the guise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), wokeness is given a formal structure to entrench itself. As John Ellis, emeritus professor at UC Santa Cruz, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “These administrative divisions don’t merely act as gatekeepers; they also affect the speech and conduct inside [institutional] gates. DEI divisions are the driving force of cancel culture on campus, which limits the free inquiry that is essential to a university’s mission.”
In early 2021, the Naval Academy published a Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, a complementary compendium to its 2030 Strategic Plan. This vision, if realized, will erode the competency of future officers and jeopardize our national security. Endorsed and signed by all senior Naval Academy leadership, from the superintendent to the academic dean and provost, the plan will shape forthcoming DEI initiatives and programs, with enforcement centralized through the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI). Drafted by ODEI, some of the published objectives and actions resemble Soviet and Maoist slogans. Describing these as troubling is charitable; pernicious and punitive are more apt descriptors.
Impact on Training and Culture
One new objective is to “develop and maintain a comprehensive cultural awareness and bias literacy training framework. […] [This] training cannot be a one-hit for on-ramping personnel.” Rather, “the commitment to shaping the culture of USNA can never reach an ‘end.’” The insinuation here is that midshipmen, instructors, professors, and officers are products and perpetuators of racist systems and institutions that must be purified through atonement for hidden sins. This perpetual revolution will result only in approved (and appropriately woke) thinking and conduct, fundamentally transforming the education and training of midshipmen by supplanting rigor, merit, and superior performance with a focus on phantom grievances.
Regarding the curriculum, the Naval Academy will “develop a diversity and inclusion checklist and schedule to inventory and assess all academic classes and training events.” It will “partner with Academic Departments in conducting a comprehensive curriculum review prioritizing the inclusion of marginalized scholarship and hidden histories within midshipmen education.” Prioritizing DEI-specific learning and training will necessarily degrade traditional facets of course development and pedagogy, leading to politicized content devoid of the rigor necessary to develop thinking officers who may one day lead sailors and Marines in combat. Furthermore, the fate of those who will not comply, given their belief in, and right to, academic freedom, will be grim. Things will surely not end well, professionally and personally, for these contrarians.
Mechanisms for Compliance
For the non-compliant, the plan has a built-in mechanism for discipline. The Naval Academy will “develop a confidential process for reporting bias incidents for non-punitive informational purposes to proactively identify areas for potential additional training.” What constitutes a “bias incident,” and will there be defined limits? The Naval Academy does not specify. Nor can much stock be put in promises that the process will be “non-punitive.” The creation of a process by which anyone can confidentially inform on others will inevitably create a climate of fear—about one’s reputation, future professional prospects, and perceived integrity. Will future assignments and promotions, for example, hinge on adherence to approved DEI initiatives? Parallels to totalitarian models of control in USNA’s new objectives are evident.
The potential legal perils associated with this plan are also concerning. It is conceivable that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) will be used to enforce woke ideology at the Naval Academy and beyond. All uniformed personnel at the Naval Academy, including midshipmen, are subject to the UCMJ, a legal code significantly harsher than most civil and criminal codes. For instance, punitive article 917 states, “Any person subject to this chapter who uses provoking or reproachful words or gestures towards any other person subject to this chapter shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.” Policy and law will surely be wielded as potent weapons of compliance and discipline by those devoted to implementing woke ideology and transforming the naval service.
The Diversity Peer Educator Program
To ensure full indoctrination, the Naval Academy published a formal instruction in early 2022 creating the Diversity Peer Educator Program (DPE). This program requires that midshipmen “be taught appropriate terminology [and] facilitation techniques and … given the necessary skills and tools to discuss sensitive topics among their peers.” The DPE program will create a parallel structure of authority in which the DEI agenda competes with regular structures of military good order and discipline. It mandates Marxist struggle sessions resembling forums for confessing and repenting unknown biases. The ambiguity in the instruction allows for continuous reinterpretation to fit whatever administrators and facilitators wish.
DPE sessions will inevitably evolve into enforcement mechanisms for approved DEI thought, speech, and behaviors, conflicting with traditional military hierarchies of command. Coupled with a confidential system to report “bias incidents,” continued airing of perceived systemic biases will encourage behavior contradictory to military discipline. Consider a minority midshipman who commits an infraction and is disciplined by a company officer who happens to be a white male. If this midshipman decides she is being disciplined because of her race and gender, she may well report a complaint through formal and informal channels. Even if no formal investigation ensues, the mere reporting will have a chilling effect on the chain-of-command with unforeseen consequences. The potential second- and third-order effects will likely ripple throughout the Naval Academy and fleet as the DEI agenda becomes more pervasive, eroding military effectiveness and competency as personal survival supersedes professional development.
Long-Term Implications
Tradeoffs exist everywhere in life, and the Naval Academy is no different. By creating a DEI agenda with deep structures, the USNA ensures that DEI will infiltrate every aspect of its operations over time. This presents a significant opportunity cost to the naval service, as DEI education and training will supplant other forms of education and training more conducive to developing future Navy and Marine Corps officers. The outcome will be less-prepared officers entering a fleet in times of great peril across the globe. DEI will continuously grow, commanding scarce resources that could otherwise be spent on real education and training designed to develop tactically proficient and strategic-thinking officers. These are the attributes our nation needs in its naval officers, not the complaints of DEI bureaucrats perpetuating an ideology hostile to our nation’s ability to fight and win future wars.
America is richly diverse, and the talents of its people are manifold. Few would oppose an all-volunteer military tapping into this pool, especially for its officer corps. DEI, a political construct, will not inspire recruits, nor is it an appropriate model for the education and development of this nation’s future naval officers. It may seem innocuous, but it has already begun to infuse nearly every aspect of the Naval Academy and naval service, to the detriment of readiness and martial competence.
One need only ask a simple question: Will a DEI agenda propagating woke ideology prepare future leaders to wage and win wars against our enemies? Those who believe so are either blind or worse.
J.A. Cauthen, a former naval officer, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2002 and taught in the History Department from 2007 to 2010.
