Official websites use .mil
Secure .mil websites use HTTPS
JIM BANKS:
The hearing will now come to order. I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare a recess at any time. Without objection, so ordered. And I ask unanimous consent to allow members not on the subcommittee to participate in today's hearing and be allowed to ask questions after all subcommittee members have been recognized.
Without objection, so ordered. I want to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Military Personnel Subcommittee. Today's hearing is focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion and its impact on the Department of Defense and the Armed Services. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. I hope this hearing provides the opportunity for our members to have a productive exchange with our witnesses and provide answers to their questions.
Let me set the stage by saying the military services continue to be one of the most meritocratic organizations in the United States of America, thanks to the principles established by President Truman in Executive Order 9981; that there shall be equal treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.
These principles enabled me, a working class kid from Indiana, to be the first in my family to go to college, and later joined the Navy Reserves and served my country in uniform. That is what meritocracy provides, an opportunity for everyone regardless of race, color, religion, national origin or gender to raise your right hand to serve your country, and to succeed on hard work and determination alone.
And that is what I found in the Navy; no evidence of widespread racism, just sailors of every color, background, and religion, working hard to get the mission done. But we are now in danger of losing those meritocratic principles to the politicization of our armed forces, thanks, first and foremost to the ever expanding bureaucracy of diversity, equity and inclusion policies, regulations and trainings.
This DEI apparatus is based in faulty science and misguided principles. In fact, anti-bias training efforts may be, quote, "having literally any -- any effect, including to actually increase bias." In a review of 418 prejudice reduction experiments, Elizabeth Levy Paluck and her coauthors concluded that much of the anti-basis training is, quote, "misguided."
And even in the few studies that showed any effect at all of reducing bias, those effects actually disappeared over a short period of time. Yet, the Department of Defense and the services have embraced DEI training full cloth, without empirical evidence. And worse, they very well may be increasing racism and division in our military.
This comes at a time when existential threats from China and Russia have never been as pronounced as what they are, and at a time when recruiting struggles put our all-volunteer force on the brink. With this -- with these looming threats, we must emphasize the readiness of our armed forces. In a response to then ranking member Senator James Inhofe of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Milley reported that DOD expended 5,359,311 manhours for Secretary Austin's extremism standdown, and an additional 529,711 manhours for DEI specific training. That is a lot of training hours spent away from honing warfighting capabilities, knowledge, and skills. Civilian control of the military is the bedrock of our system, and avoiding partisan political ideology is essential to the strength and viability of our military.
Chairman Milley -- Chairman Milley crossed the line during an Armed Services Committee hearing in the summer of 2021. He testified that it's important to study critical race theory because, quote, I want to understand white rage. What is it that made thousands of people assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America, end quote.
The highest ranking military officer in our armed forces interrupted the Secretary of Defense, connected racism to the Capitol riot, all to score partisan political points while wearing the uniform. Should we be surprised by the erosion of trust between the administration and our servicemembers, or between our military and the American public?
This cannot continue. Our servicemembers and our nation deserve a military that does not make ideological judgments. I agree with Secretary Austin who testified in the same hearing that all servicemembers and DOD civilians, quote, deserve an environment free of discrimination, hate, and harassment. I want us to work together to develop a system that remains true to our meritocratic values, that ensures the performance of all servicemembers provide opportunity, not because of the color of their skin or the God that they pray to, but because they have worked hard and identify as soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and guardians.
This is very personal for me. I was the product of a meritocratic system that afforded a boy from Indiana an opportunity to go to college and serve my country in uniform later, and now to become a member of Congress. And I want to make sure that we do everything we can to preserve that system, the American system.
That is a difficult topic with passionate voices all around, not because we hate each other, but because we all want what is best for our country and the men and women in uniform. Before hearing from our witnesses, let me offer Ranking Member Kim an opportunity to make any opening remarks. I yield to Ranking member Kim.
ANDY KIM:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're all here today because we want to take a look at how diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI are affecting our national defense, our servicemembers, and our recruitment and retention. I had a chance to review your testimonies before today, and I noticed two common themes among them.
First, you all define diversity by saying that it meant more than just demographics alone. You said it encompasses knowledge, culture, values and more, and I agree. Second, you also noted the value of bringing people with diverse backgrounds together to solve problems and matters of national security. And I agree with this, too.
As the services face an increasingly challenging recruiting environment, we should be taking steps to widen the pool that we can draw from for our all-volunteer force. That's common sense. I'm not suggesting that we compromise the quality of recruits we bring into the services, just that we don't arbitrarily limit who can join the ranks.
That's what this effort in service is -- is in service of, ensuring that we can continue to build our military with the size and capabilities needed. We ask a lot of our servicemembers. We ask them to risk their lives to protect our country, making sure that they know we have their backs, that we are supporting them.
And making them feel included shouldn't be too much to ask. I believe and I'm sure that everyone in this room would agree with me, we owe it to our servicemembers to give them the best possible chance to succeed in every mission, in every task and with every order given. That starts with how we treat every single member in every branch.
As our military has grown more diverse and inclusive, our nation's lethality remains as strong as ever. It's a false choice to say that we have to choose between embracing and strengthening diversity, and building an effective and formidable military. As our witnesses have stated, diversity is instead essential to our effectiveness; does not distract, it focuses.
It does not hurt recruitment, it grows it. It does not reduce lethality, it supports it. I'm proud of our military and believe we have the strongest fighting force in the world, and I hope that is something all of us on this committee can agree with. This doesn't have to be controversial. It was the Trump administration that created the DOD Board of Diversity and Inclusion.
Our Armed Services Committee that we're all a member of voted overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way to support the NDAA that established some of these DEI initiatives. So instead of looking for ways to polarize our military, we can instead focus on ways to support its growth and success. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this hearing today, so we can discuss the important benefits that this provides to our DOD. And thank you to the witnesses, again, for being here, and I yield back the balance of my time.
I thank the ranking member. Each witness will have the opportunity to present his or her testimony, and each member will have the opportunity to question the witnesses for five minutes. We respectfully ask the witnesses to summarize their testimony in five minutes or less. Your written comments and statements were made part of the hearing record.
With that, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Mr. Cisneros, you may make your opening statement.
GILBERT CISNEROS JR.:
Chairman Banks, Ranking Member Kim, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today to discuss the Department of Defense's greatest strength, our people. Current diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility efforts are fundamentally about supporting our people. Today's total force, the most lethal force the world has ever known, is a testament to the department's decade-long leadership on equal opportunity.
But the department is not immune to bias and prejudices, which is why it remains a priority. The diversity of the US Armed Forces is one of our greatest strengths. As the chief diversity and inclusion officer for the department, it's my responsibility to ensure that we build and draw upon the strengths, talents, capabilities and skill sets of all servicemembers regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, geography or diversity of thought.
I help provide advice on policy oversight and coordination for these matters in working with the secretary of Defense, the secretaries of the military departments, and other leaders in this space. Diversity, equity and inclusion are essential to unit cohesion and trust. A failure to leverage the strengths of our people, including failures to end discrimination, whether conscious or unconscious, undercuts unit cohesion necessary for forces to train and fight as one and to deter and defeat adversaries.
Consequently, our DEI efforts are designed to address inappropriate actions that undercut our ability to generate cohesive units. Our efforts today are not new. Diversity and inclusion has been widely supported by bipartisan administrations for decades. Seventy-five years ago, President Trump [Ph] issued an executive order to racial desegregate the forces, and Congress took action to allow women to serve.
In the summer of 2020, then Secretary of Defense Mark Esper directed immediate actions to address DEI opportunities across the department. He established the DOD Board of Diversity and Inclusion, which made comprehensive recommendations on recruitment, accessions, and means to retain and propel into leadership more diverse candidates and ideas to address climate and culture challenges that create barriers for minority members in the workplace.
Congress has also been a strong partner in recent DEI efforts. The fiscal year 2021 NDA, which passed with bipartisan supermajorities, contained groundbreaking DEI provisions which I am now diligently working to implement. These include creation of the DOD chief diversity officer position. Additional requirements included creation of a diversity strategic plan and the incorporation of strategic goals related to diversity and inclusion in the armed Forces within the National Defense Strategy.
The department has made progress in aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. For example, current demographics of enlisted servicemembers reflect clear progress in a force more representative of our nation's total population. Recent initiatives to support a culture of equity, dignity, and respect include removing photographs and references to race, ethnicity, and gender from personnel files and promotion and selection processes, enacting stronger protections against harassment and discrimination, training to detect and respond appropriately to bias, reviewing hairstyles and grooming policies, and training leaders on how to guide discussions on discrimination, prejudice and bias.
Yet -- yet, other areas require continued efforts. The officer population is not as diverse as the enlisted force, and women are significantly underrepresented. Many factors contribute to the lack of diversity at our highest grades, but one thing is certain; we must maintain a strong pipeline of diverse candidates.
By building a diverse cohort of young, talented and driven servicemembers, we hope to see their accession up the chain of command and eventually placement in the highest ranks of leadership based on merit. Recently, we implemented talent management sprints to test promising -- promising initiatives to remove barriers and increase their opportunity across the career life cycle.
We expanded ROTC Preparatory and Military Service Academy nomination programs to assess a broader pool for officer commissioning opportunities. We are studying barriers that negatively impact career advancement for servicemembers and civilians. Secretary Austin has emphasized that one of the department's top priorities is to ensure that all who seek to join the community and share in our common purpose have the opportunity to leverage their capabilities, realize their full potential, and rise to the highest level of responsibility in the department.
I am committed to working with you on the subcommittee to ensure our servicemembers and civilian employees have every opportunity to succeed and contribute to the mission. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear here before the subcommittee, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Now, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Ms. Schaefer, you may make your opening statement.
AGNES SCHAEFER:
Good afternoon, Chairman Banks, Ranking Member Kim, distinguished members of this subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the men and women of the United States Army. At the end of December 2022, the Senate confirmed me to be the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and I joined an amazing Army team that works tirelessly every day to improve the lives of our Army soldiers, civilians, and their families.
I bring both deep and broad expertise to my current position, as well as a renewed emphasis on leveraging data and analysis to assess the effectiveness of our policies and programs to better target our resources in alignment with the Secretary of the Army's six main objectives. Between my previous position as the senior advisor to the current Deputy Secretary of Defense and my 16 years at RAND supporting the Department of Defense through research and analysis, my focus every day for years has been on improving our military's readiness to meet the objectives of our national security strategy and to improve the lives of our active and reserve component members and their families.
In my current role, these continue to be my focus in service of our soldiers, civilians, and their families. My three priorities are readiness, including quality of life and prevention of harmful behaviors, manning the army of 2030, and the strategic modernization of our personnel policies, processes and systems across the entire spectrum of our Army people strategy.
Readiness ensures that we have the ability to project combat power whenever, wherever, it is required. Manning the Army of 2030 requires not only the new weapons systems and doctrines to succeed in the future of warfare, but also the people who have the appropriate skills and competencies for tomorrow, not just today.
Strategic modernization includes how we recruit and hire, how we grow, employ and manage our talent, and how we create a workplace culture that enables people to thrive and want to grow and expand their careers in the Army. The Army's mission remains unchanged, to fight and win our nation's wars. We do this with a trained and ready force prepared to respond to the evolving threat landscape.
There is no better investment to ensure the readiness of the Army than our people. Our people are our strength and our strategic advantage. We draw talent from every state and territory, building cohesive teams of people with infinite backgrounds, talents and viewpoints they bring to the fight. Therefore, our number one priority is people, our soldiers, our Army civilians, their families, and veterans who are soldiers for life.
In 2019, the Army published the Army People Strategy, which describes a clear framework to acquire, develop, employ and return the diversity of talent needed to achieve total Army readiness. The vision of this strategy is to build cohesive teams that capitalize on the positive and powerful aspects of Army culture, create people-focused commands and organizations that prevent harmful behaviors and build trust across our formations.
The nation we serve is becoming increasingly diverse, and the soldiers and army civilians we recruit will reflect those trends. To keep our Army strong and accomplish the mission, we must attract, recruit, and retain people who embody the best of America. And we must offer them opportunities that allow them to fulfill their aspirations.
A diverse and talented force of trained and cohesive teams is the most -- most important indicator of our readiness. Chairman Banks, Ranking Member Kim, members of this subcommittee, I thank you for your generous and unwavering support of our outstanding soldiers, civilian professionals, and their families.
I look forward to our discussion and your questions.
Thank you. Mr. Parker?
FRANKLIN PARKER:
Good afternoon, Chairman Banks, Ranking Member Kim, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. I want to convey on behalf of Secretary Del Toro and the senior Department of the Navy civilian and military leadership that our ultimate objective is to produce the best combat-ready naval forces in the world.
To meet our mission with an all-volunteer force, we must therefore make the idea of service attractive to all Americans. As many leaders in the Department of the Navy have said, the best way to accomplish this is to build a force that reflects the America it deserves. We strive to cultivate a force that draws strength from America's boundless diversity, one that seeks out the intrinsic value in our differences, woven into an inclusive maritime force that not only incorporates racial and gender diversity, but diverse experience in varied backgrounds, ethnicities, and beliefs.
The act of inclusion enables us to bridge our collective differences and to solve problems on and away from the battlefield. Inclusion is founded on respect, which breeds trust, fostering healthier command climates and, therefore, fostering readiness. Our greatest asset is our sailors, marines and their families, along with our civilian workforce.
To retain our competitive advantage in these times, we must leverage the strengths of all people. Valuing diversity is a way of enabling all segments of our society to understand that their capacity to serve is valued, and to help create conditions in which they will not only want to serve, but also will stay and have the opportunity to realize their full potential.
This will allow the Navy and Marine Corps to more fully avail ourselves of the best possible talent that all America has to offer. Our Navy and Marine Corps team must foster a culture of warfighting excellence. Treating each other with dignity and respect is foundational to that effort. To that end, we are exploring data-driven approaches to increase our understanding of existing challenges and improve our efforts to address them.
We are making progress in creating an environment that embraces diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Our country is more diverse than ever. However, that diversity is not fully reflected in our military, especially in the senior military leadership ranks. Similarly, the majority of our servicemembers come from only a portion of our nation, leaving other areas of the country less represented.
Competing in today's complex global environment requires us to expand our geographic diversity to find the most innovative and open-minded cadre of recruits from every part of this great nation. Harnessing a new generation of talent will best be accomplished by actively seeking to incorporate skilled individuals from all regions, backgrounds, and segments of society.
The retention of our best qualified from all corners of America is equally important. As leaders, we must concentrate on the fundamentals of good leadership, knowing that engaging our people, supporting their development, and equipping them to succeed will help them find fulfillment in their careers, consistent with their faithful commitment to serving our country.
Our nation needs a strong, well-trained and well-equipped Navy and Marine Corps to address the wide array of challenges and threats we face. To be a combat ready force, we must leverage the strengths of our people. We are doing our utmost to build a force that draws from and, therefore, reflects our entire nation, thereby increasing our military readiness and maritime dominance by assessing the full range of our nation's talent.
As we look forward to the future, we must not take for granted what makes our Navy and Marine Corps unparalleled and unmatched: The people -- active duty, reserve, civilians and their families, who serve this country. I look forward to working with you to ensure that our efforts meaningfully and effectively support the well-being of our sailors, marines, civilians and their families, and that we always best positioned them to fulfill their vital roles in support of our national security interests.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I stand ready to answer your questions.
Thank you. Mr. Wagner.
ALEX WAGNER:
Chairman Banks, Ranking Member Kim, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I'm proud to testify today about the Department of the Air Force's efforts to recruit and retain the most lethal, effective, and collaborative force possible Dominant air and space power derives not only from our exquisite platforms, but from the dedicated and talented people that operate them.
Intentional diversity and inclusion efforts allow us to tap into the full talents of the American people, and then leverage those talents to defend the nation. Our diversity and inclusion initiatives are focused on talent acquisition and development, and informed by science and business best practices, congressional mandates, data-focused policy reviews and assessments, and the lived experiences of airmen and guardians working together every single day.
As the People's Republic of China seeks to increasingly compete with us in the air and space domains, I believe that having a cohesive diverse team, including both race and gender, but also regional, cultural and intellectual diversity, provides us real advantages on the battlefield of the future. But we're not only competing on the global stage.
We're also in a race with the private sector for the same talent. That competition is as intense as ever with record low unemployment and record high wage growth. To recruit and retain the world's most capable workforce, our diverse nation must see our military as an employer of choice. The challenging recruiting environment combined with a growing lack of understanding of the military has resulted in historically low youth propensity.
We've got to expand our efforts among previously untapped markets of diverse talent. Anyone eligible to serve who meets our high standards and is courageous enough to say they'll support and defend the Constitution should be able to do so. And if we don't invest in growing propensity among women and the nation's fastest-growing racial and ethnic groups, we risk the future of the all-volunteer force.
Of course, despite strong 90 percent retention overall, our data tells us that airmen and guardians of color and especially women have lower retention rates. To fix this, we're taking proactive steps fueled by an inspector general-led series of reviews to better understand and analyze disparities in military justice, in promotion rates, and career development selection.
You know, you've all got my opening statement for the record. So I want to close by sharing a personal experience that influenced my appreciation for how diversity and inclusion drives better outcomes. In my last job, we planned to release a report on aerospace and defense in the year 2050, and I wanted to do it at South by Southwest, the nation's largest technology and innovation festival.
To reach that type of educated, creative workforce at South By, we needed to compete for attention with consumer-facing brands that often spent millions to launch their products or TV shows. I thought we could get noticed by giving away cool swag alongside the report, and my idea was branded socks. We spent some time debating the color of the socks, the logo, and just how many to order.
And just before finalizing the plan, a young woman of my team came in and asked if she could speak to me privately. She confided, Alex, you know women don't really wear crew socks. I asked, well what do they wear? And she responded, ankle socks. It had never occurred to me to order any other kind of socks than the kind that I was familiar with.
Her suggestion had merit, and we ended up ordering half ankle and half crew socks. Of course, the socks were a hit. But what was telling was that the demand for the ankle socks by both women and men was higher than for the crew socks, and substantially so. Our entire project was more effective because a woman on my team was comfortable sharing her perspective with a pretty opinionated male boss, and that I was open to that input.
Intentionally building a diverse team and then creating an environment where everyone feels like their voices are valued and heard is not only the right thing to do, but it gets you better outcomes. Given the DAFs high-stake mission, we need every tool available to defend the nation and our interests. And maximizing the talents and unleashing the problem-solving skills of all of our people provide America with distinct advantages.
With that, I look forward to the conversation and your questions.
Ok, thank you very much. To begin questions, I will yield five minutes to Representative Stefanik.
ELISE STEFANIK:
Thank you, Chairman Banks. Mr. Cisneros, are you familiar with the tweet? It's both on the screens -- it should be up there and right behind me -- by the former DODEA chief of diversity, equity, and Inclusion, Kelisa Wing? Are you familiar with the tweet?
UNKNOWN:
[Inaudible]
Can you please read the tweet aloud?
So exhausted at the white folks in these PD sessions. This lady actually had the caudacity [sp] 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. A thread, why ask for assistance.
And again, for the viewers who are watching this, this is the former chief of DEI for DODEA, for schools in our Department of Defense. This is wildly inappropriate and unacceptable. Would you agree with that, Mr. Cisneros?
I do agree that that is not acceptable. It's not condoned by -- it's not something I would condone, and it's not condoned by DODEA or the Department of Defense.
Well, when I raised this issue, in fact, I wrote a letter to the department of September of last year and did not receive a response. It was only when I wrote a follow-up letter on November of last year, we did finally get a response on -- in December, stating the department was conducting an inquiry into this matter.
Today, six months after that initial inquiry, you responded three hours prior to this hearing, which is a trend for Biden administration officials at the last minute scrambling before these hearings; claiming that you determined Ms. Wing was speaking, quote, in a personal capacity and that her colleagues never heard her made similar comments at work.
However, interestingly in the letter, which I want to submit for the record.
Without objection.
It also states that she has been transferred as part of headquarters restructuring. She was reassigned to another position that does not include diversity, equity, and inclusion specific responsibilities. I have a feeling that has to do with the fact that we have shined light on this. But my question for you is, will you commit to making the review and the findings publicly available to Congress and to servicemembers?
Ma'am, you did get the letter today. I apologize that it did not come sooner, but I will say also my team has been down here, the DODEA team as well, to -- to talk with staff on this topic.
No, there was no response to the letter. We were promised 30 days, 30 days after September would be October.
The Director of Schools Tom Brady was down on the Hill to talk with staff.
Don't cover up for the trend of the Biden administration. This is the second hearing in two weeks where the response to a letter delayed is given the day of or the day before the hearing, with FBI director Chris Wray, My question for you is, will you make the findings of this review publicly available to Congress and to servicemen and women?
You know, Ms. Wing is a -- is a GS employee. She's not a senior executive. There are personal restrictions -- there are restrictions that we are -- have to follow. But we will look into the matter, as far as to see what can be -- what can be shared and what can't.
Well, we are requesting that. My next question for you is, have you read Kelisa Wing's books titled What is White Privilege? What does it Mean to Defund the police? What is the Black Lives Matter Movement? Have you read those books?
I have not read those books.
Are you aware, however, that those books are in DODEA K through 12 schools throughout the country?
I do not know -- I can't say with certainty. I do not know that they are in those libraries at all, or if they have been or if they are now.
Well, they are. Do you think that's -- that's appropriate?
I don't know for a fact that they are.
They are; I'm telling you they are. That's why I asked you the question. You should know, you're a DOD official. I'm informing you. You should know the answer that they are available.
Well, I --
--And one reason you should know that is because in her own presentation as a DOD employee at a DODEA summit, she stated, quote, my passion work is dismantling disparate discipline systems, and I am hugely passionate about dismantling the school to prison pipeline. I have written a book, Promises and Possibilities: Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline.
Shameless plug, that's her words, end quote. So while conducting her official duties as a DODEA employee, she advertised not only her personal social media accounts, which included this tweet, her personal websites, but she advertised her personal books. Are you aware that this is illegal for DOD employees to advertise and promote their personal books that they will profit off of those sales?
I -- again, this was a book that she wrote and a personal matter. It was on her personal tweet, I guess from what I understand, you're saying.
No, no, it wasn't on a personal tweet. It was at a DOD summit. In her capacity, presenting as a DOD official, she promoted her book. And, in fact, she said, she stated this is a shameless plug for her book. Is that illegal and is that appropriate?
I don't know who she was talking to or what the summit was. I'm not aware with that, but I can look into it and I'll get back to you.
Well, you seem to not know a lot of what's happening in the department. You seem to be inappropriate. 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 systems.
Well, there are restrictions. Again, she's a GS employee. She's not a senior executive. Well, there are restrictions that, again, she's a GS employee. She's not a senior executive. The inquiry did find that, you know, these -- the tweets that she made or comments that she made were not in line with the Department of Defense or DODEA schools, but they were made on a personal basis.
That was the result of the inquiry. And we will look into the privacy that's in there and we will share -- we will look into what we can share and what we can't share.
I'll yield back the chair.
Yield five minutes to the Ranking Member Kim?
I'm going to yield to Congresswoman Jill Tokuda.
JILL TOKUDA:
Thank you very much. You know, taking a look at the testimony, I appreciate all of you being here today. We do see that there is an increase in AA and HPI recruitment. Hawaii, where I represent, is actually one of the hot spots historically for recruitment where you have a significant number coming from our Asian America, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander communities.
Now according to the military's Workplace Equal Opportunity Survey from 2017, almost a quarter of Asian American servicemen reported racial or ethnic harassment or discrimination. My question to you is during the pandemic, our country witnessed a significant rise in AAPI hate and discrimination incidences.
Has there been an updated survey done post-pandemic that has tracked to see if this is the same case with our military servicemen and women?
The discrimination that's been taking place amongst our AAPI community throughout the country because of the COVID pandemic was just unacceptable and very unfortunate. But I will tell you, I have not received since I've been the -- the chief diversity and inclusion officer, since I've been the undersecretary for personnel and readiness.
I have not come across any cases within the Department of Defense where I've seen any cases of discrimination based on that.
Ok, Well, sir, it was more than unfortunate. We're talking about lives being in danger. We're talking about discrimination and hate racism in our country. And, in fact, if in 2017 before the pandemic, when we were talking about COVID and we had things like kung flu being flung out from the highest offices of this country, you already had 1 in 4 service members of color, of AAPI backgrounds saying that they felt Intimidated, felt discrimination.
I can only imagine that would have increased. So are you telling me that you have never heard of any incidences of AAPI hate discrimination taking place in the last two and a half years when we have literally seen people beaten in our streets?
If you're talking in general across the United States, yes, I have.
I'm talking about within the service.
But within the Department of the military, I have not come across or none have been open to me where people have been discriminated or put in a situation to where they --
Clearly you folks have not updated the survey. I would humbly ask that if we did this survey in 2017 and we saw a trend where 1 in 4 members felt discrimination at this time, felt ethnic harassment. Then I would guess that we should be doing a follow-up survey disaggregated by ethnicity so we can see across the board where is discrimination and harassment taking place.
What are we doing to actually address this? I want to move on to my next question. Still somewhat related as we focus our attention now on strategic competition with China, combating anti-AANHPI hate, bias, discrimination, and xenophobia is not just going to be about protecting the civil rights of our people.
It's also going to be a strategic imperative. Now DEI initiatives help combat anti-AANHPI hate and discrimination and should be creating a welcoming and attractive environment that can draw the best talent and workforce to the department and enhance our competitive edge with China. We need people that have critical language and cultural understanding to meet the demands in this vastly diverse Indo-Pacific region right on the edge of my district and that includes China, because competition is not just about the assets and capabilities we can field, but also more importantly, the strategies and doctrines we employ.
To succeed in that requires the empathy to understand both the culture and the philosophy that defined the way our strategic competitors think and perceive the world. It's hard to be able to do that and acquire that without strong AAPI representation in our military and especially in at senior leadership.
We know that this works. One only has to look back to World War II. My grandfather was in the military intelligence service. Thanks to these brave men, we know for a fact that the war was shortened and lives were saved. And yet we also know that for these AANHPI men, when they came home, many of them came home to racism, discrimination, hate.
To the panel today, now as we look forward to having to engage critically with strategic competition with China, how are we going to learn from the mistakes of the past and how are we going to better protect and foster a positive environment that will allow us to recruit and retain and take care of the civil rights of our AANHPI servicemen and civilian personnel?
Ma'am, we want to make sure the environment is inclusive for all of our service members and all those that want to join the service, whether they're AAPI or any racial or ethnic background. You know, my family is a melting pot. I have a aunt that is Chinese. I have cousins that are Chinese. One of my first department heads when I was in the US Navy was Filipino.
I had the pleasure of working with many of them throughout when serving in the United States Navy and in the armed forces. So making sure that they're all treated fairly and everybody is treated fairly is a big thing and we need to do better at recruiting --
I agree we need to do better. Sir, my time is about to yield and I appreciate -- yes, I hope you treat every service men and women like it was your family, your friend that you were taking a look. And I can tell you right now, if we have no data to even say whether or not --
-- The woman's time is expired --
-- they face discrimination, then we're not taking care of them like we would our own loved ones. Thank you. I yield back.
Representative Gaetz.
MATT GAETZ:
I would like to go back to the tweets of the racist person that works for you. What does 'caudacity' mean?
I have no idea, Congressman.
You took six months to investigate one tweet. You didn't even figure out what the words meant.
I didn't investigate the thing. She's a DOD -- or she's a -- she's a --
-- Well, you said in the Fox News article that you were going to take 30 days and investigate it and it took you six months. In a six month investigation, you guys didn't learn what caudacity meant? I think you know. 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?
Wow! What an investigation when she says?
-- Well, I did not -- I will say I did not do the investigation. She is a GS employee that's employed by DODEA. DODEA conducted the investigation.
Gosh, the Pentagon told Fox News Digital that Gil Cisneros would provide a final decision in 30 days. So they gave -- so someone at the Pentagon is throwing your name out there as being responsible for this. And now it looks foolish that you're suggesting you don't know what that means.
Well, I would say that --
-- Hold on --
-- That quote did not come from me. I don't know who that is.
Let's go -- let's go to this, Mr. Cisneros.
What's a PD session? My guess would be personal development.
Personal development. You don't think it's professional development. Another open matter for the investigation that it didn't resolve. So you don't know what caudacity means. She's obviously talking about professional development there and like when she says I had to stop -- or let's go to the next claim.
"The caudacity to say that black people can be racist too." Mr. Cisneros, can black people be racist too?
I've already stated, Congressman, that I didn't agree with her statements but --
-- I'm not asking about that position. Can black people be racist?
This -- this question is about me or my personal beliefs, but again I don't --
-- You're the leading official over DEI, a racist person who works for you puts out these tweets and you won't say whether you agree or disagree.
I told you -- I don't agree with it.
The chairman just wants to remind members to observe standards of decorum.
This is decorum. It's my time. Can black people be racist?
I do -- I do not agree with that tweet.
Do you agree with that statement? I'm asking you a statement. Can black people be racist?
I'm not going to answer that, Congressman.
Why not?
Because it's -- you're asking me a personal opinion and that's not what this is about.
Well, actually, I'm asking you in your capacity as a senior DOD official in the Biden administration, who is -- where we see recruiting falling off the table, whether or not the embrace of racist tweets, whether shuffling these people around rather than firing them, and whether this little exchange here is helping or hurting recruiting.
Let's go ahead and put up the record.
I will tell you, we do not support racist tweets. We do not support racism in the military.
Well, did you fire this lady?
Again --
-- You hired her.
Again, as I state -- I did not hire her as she was hired --
DOD hired her.
As it was stated earlier, she's a DODEA employee. She's a GS employee. The inquiry that was done said these -- these tweets were done on a personal matter.
-- Oh, a personal matter. How do you know it's a personal matter -- -- It was done on a personal matter -- -- if you don't know that the PD stands for professional development? Mr. Cisneros, this is a professional development session where she attacked white colleagues and took the position that black people can't be racist.
Now you can't answer basic questions about it and here's what I would propose to you. This is what we're looking at in recruiting right now. It's fallen off the table. And when you have employees that you don't fire who do racist things and say racist things, then you really hurt the ability to recruit people who want to be part of a -- of an inclusive and diverse force.
I would say the data that we have is not -- the recruiting is not falling off because of that. But again the Department of Defense, DODEA does agree with the tweets that she made.
It was at 3:00 during the workday. You didn't fire her. If someone puts out racist things, do you fire them or do you just move them around?
That was not an official -- that was not an official -- that's her own personal Twitter account.
So here's the problem with the double standard, Mr. Cisneros. When Caucasian members of the military post about the Second Amendment or supporting building the wall, you all seem to be on a white supremacy snipe hunt. You seem to take people's personal views and weaponize them against them. And I've had people in my district who serve that wonder whether or not some joke that they forwarded or meme that they liked is going to result in the ruining of their careers.
But you have no such interest when it's a person like this. You delayed the investigation. Your own name was -- what on -- what DOD put out is conducting the investigation. You delayed it. This lady makes like $160,000 a year. Do you really think today the taxpayer should be paying this lady that amount of money?
The investigation was not conducted by me. That was never --
Well, why did the Pentagon say it was you?
I don't know who the Pentagon in that said that, but I will tell you it was a misstatement.
-- Mr. Chairman, I seek to -- well, I tell you what --
-- The investigation was conducted by DODEA because she's a DODEA employee.
Well, it if you just fired racist people, then maybe you wouldn't have to go through this. But, Mr. Chairman, I have a series of unanimous consent requests.
So -- so first is "Pentagon drags out decision after probe into woke diversity chief accused of anti-white people's tweets." The second is "Wing selected as DODEA, Chief of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" and that is from DODEA.edu. The next is "Everybody Can Be Racist" DOD Chief Diversity Educator Defends Tweets targeted toward white educators.
Without objection, so ordered. Gentleman's time has expired. I yield five minutes to Representative Houlihan.
CHRISSY HOULAHAN:
Thank you, Mr Chair, and I feel that the conversation that we're having right now by its literal very nature and its words is divisive and politicizing of the military. And I feel as though it's one of the reasons why, not the reason why recruiting may be seeing a sag is that people don't see themselves in the military.
They don't see their nation in the military and I'm embarrassed by the tone and tenor of this conversation. It does not reflect the dignity of this body and it's not respectful of the people who are sitting in front of us today. My questions do have to do with my own personal experience, having served as a woman in the military in the late 80s and the early 90s and about the progress that we're making with 51 percent of the population who really do have the interest and the will of serving our all-volunteer military.
But we have some work to do in this area and so I'd like to ask you some questions about that. The ceiling on the percentage of women allowed to serve in the military was repealed in 1967. Women continued however, to be prohibited from serving in many positions by statute and by policy, particularly those occupations that were related directly to combat armed specialties.
In 1993, all laws prohibiting females from serving in any occupation were repealed. However, by policy, women were still excluded from serving in units or occupations involving in direct combat. It took another 22 years until December of 2015 for all combat jobs to be open to women with no waivers and with no exceptions.
So my question is first to you, Under Secretary Cisneros, but really for any of you all. In the years since that we have learned a lot about the full inclusion of women in the military. Does the current DOD training and policy increase the opportunity for women to fully participate and serve including in combat roles?
And do you believe that the addition of this giant demographic of 51 percent of our population has enhanced our readiness?
Representative Houlihan, to answer your question right there at the last one first is yes. They do enhance our readiness and I think women are an integral part of our military service today that serve in the military. They're nearly 20 percent of the force. We know that in order to -- to improve and to increase our force that we need to be -- we need to be more inclusive of women joining the force.
And we know that we need to do a better job of ensuring that they stay around so that they can move up the ranks.
And if there's a way, given that you gave me the exact statistic that I hold as well, which is that women do make up about 20 percent of the officer corps right now, but they are unfortunately less than 10 percent of our highest leadership positions. And here is likely why. My argument would be to you and to to this -- this committee here that a true meritocracy is not possible right now.
And as much as I value a meritocracy, as many of us do, it is not possible when the military personnel system does not typically allow for lateral entry. And therefore, the average general or flag officer has been in service for about 30 years, which means that females who have been in the service for about 40 years do not likely have the qualifications or the ability to -- to be able to be considered for these promotions because of these restrictions that existed while they were rising through the ranks.
As a retired Air Force General Lester Lyles, who chaired the Military Leadership Diversity Commission stated, "We know that the exclusion -- this exclusion hinders women -- women from promotion. They're not getting credit for being in combat arms and that's important for their consideration for most senior ranks." So with my remaining minute and a half, Mr. Cisneros, can you talk about why given in this context focusing on retention of female service members is indeed important and critical to fulfill the service's goals of promoting a diverse and inclusive leadership policy as is outlined by the DOD?
Congresswoman, the data we have shows that women service members are outperforming their male counterparts as they move up the ranks. But what we're also seeing is that they are leaving -- they leave more often than their male counterparts do. That is something that we found out when we conducted the sprints that we did last year.
This is something that we need to continue to work on to solve. I think Secretary Austin has done a tremendous job of searching out and finding those qualified individuals. We have four within the -- well, within the -- the Department of Defense, our -- our TRANSCOM commander, our SOCOM commander, our vice CNO are all four star, you know, GOFOs, general officers-flag officers.
The commandant of the Coast Guard is a -- is a woman as well, but, you know, I by no means would tell you that we can't do better. We need to do better and I am committed to you that we that we will do better.
Thank you. I know that there's so much more that I have to ask and I have no time left. I yield back and thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Yield five minutes to General Bergman.
JACK BERGMAN:
Good afternoon, all. The title of this hearing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Impact to the Department of Defense and the Armed Services. Bottom line is readiness. I'll be ready to fight. There's only one reason for the military and that's to protect and defend our citizens and our country. Other than that, we don't need one.
So I'd like to -- this is going to be real easy. This is going to be not even multiple choice, it's going to be -- the answers are going to be positive or negative, Ok? And what I'd like to do is here's the basic question, does DEI affect, and I'm going to read things here and we're going to start with you, Mr. Cisneros -- and Mr. Cisneros and say positively or negatively.
For example, does DEI as it exists today in the Department of Defense affect recruiting? Positive or negative?
Positive.
Congressman, we need to recruit from all of America and make sure we get the talents --
-- Positive or negative?
Very positive, sir.
Ok. So why haven't -- why haven't we made our numbers?
Well, Congressman, the -- as you look at the data --
-- So it takes a while to -- to take -- so what you're saying is your programs will take effect over time?
What I'm telling you right now is there's not a propensity to serve right now within the general population --
-- And -- and DEI -- and DEI is going to solve that?
I think the DEI is going to give us a larger pool to prove from and now it's not just DEI of -- of like, as we said by -- by sexuality race --
I don't want to -- I got some more questions. It is -- I -- I would beg -- I will look forward to the numbers when we see September 30th, whether we hit our numbers or not in recruiting to see the effects. Good programs and there's a lot of good ideas in DOD, but they're not evaluated over time. And we have too many programs that are still on the books.
I'm not going to start naming them. You know, you've seen them in your departments that we need to stop doing. The hardest thing we have to do sometimes is stop doing something that isn't working. Ok, Retention positive or negative?
Definitely positive.
Ok. Promotion?
Promotion? Positive.
Congressman, of course, it's a -- it's always a good --
It's always a positive thing when we have a more diversity.
Command selection?
Ok. The point is annually we look at everything from command selection rates to promotion rates to retention rates and one I didn't ask was family readiness and family preparedness because to your point know when people leave the service, leave active service, they leave usually for a reason. And one of those reasons in today's military is the effect on the family, the overall.
And that may be a reason to leave. But the reason I wanted to ask you all those questions is that we're going to have the same question next year. I'm going to ask it exactly the same way and what I expect to -- when you say positive, I want to see numbers. Ok. But most importantly what I'm concerned about is command selection and command environment because when we fight, we deploy our units all over the world.
And at that point, you don't have the opportunity to go back to a program or a class that you went to in the Pentagon or wherever your base was before you deployed. You are in the fight and if you don't have a unit that believes in itself and it believes in itself because of its commanding officer and its and its senior enlisted, there is no other reason.
There is no other reason that that unit will be successful and being successful means you accomplish the mission and you bring people home. So having said that, I look at this as teeing it up to make sure that next year when we have this hearing, we want to see substantial numbers that show that you said was positive was in fact positive and not just posturing.
And with that I yield back.
Thank you. Yield five minutes to Rep. Strickland.
MARILYN STRICKLAND:
Thank you very much, Chairman Banks and Ranking Member Kim. When we talk about recruiting and retention, we know that when the economy is strong, when unemployment is down, when wages are up, in addition to the challenges that we face in the military housing, child care, pay spousal employment that all has an impact on whether or not serving the military is attractive.
And it's a little troubling to me that instead of addressing this national security issue that we have some folks on this panel who are obsessed with tweets, which by the way, if you're going to be obsessed with tweets that say things inappropriate, a lot of people that we serve with would be disqualified for public service.
But I digress. My first question is for Ms. Schaefer. I understand that the training pipeline to become part of infantry includes about two hours of equal opportunity training between basic and one station unit training. Does that sound accurate?
It does.
And I also understand that over that period of time, the same trainee will get over 250 hours of rifle marksmanship training. Is that more or less correct?
Correct.
So, Ms. Schaefer, do you think that this disparity, two hours of DEI training versus 250 hours of rifle training represents something that is going to contribute to the decline of the effectiveness of the Army?
No, and I would clarify that the -- the two hours of DEI training, it's actually one hour depending on which part of basic training you go through, that is actually statutory -- statutorily mandated MEO and EEO training.
Great. Thank you. Evolving national demographics mean that almost half of the 70 million or so Generation Z Americans are racial minorities and almost a third are immigrants or children of immigrants. Rand studied this on behalf of the Army and their research shows that individual recruiter characteristics such as gender and race are directly related to recruiter productivity.
In other words, young Americans are more likely to join the military if their recruiters look like them. Mr. Cisneros, can you please describe how changing demographics inform the department's long term approach to talent recruitment and retention?
Yeah, As you -- as you stated, right, the demographics of the nation are changing. Eventually one day we're going to be a minority-majority nation and not only are we changing the minority population increasing, but it's also spreading out through different parts of the country as well. Being Hispanic, Hispanics are typically part of the Southwest, but now they've kind of moved into other areas of the country down in the south and the northeast as well.
But looking at this, what we want to do is really kind of ensure as you said, right? We want to -- we want to be ensure that we can show that individuals. You know, when somebody is being recruited that they're looking -- that they can see people that look like them and they can imagine that, hey, I can do this as well one day.
And so it is important, there right for it to make sure that individuals are able to see themselves in this career field, right? I think the personal touch is very important. And when I first took over this job, I met with the commanding officer of recruit command and the Army. You know, we have to be sure that we set for people -- for success.
And he told me a story about how they had an Asian -- an Asian service member who was serving, was from Southern California, but they put him to recruit in the Bronx, in New York. So they quickly realized their mistake and they moved him back to the community where he was from, so he could appeal to those individuals.
Now that doesn't mean our recruiters can only recruit people that look like them. But, you know, I think when we go after certain communities, it is important that they're able to see someone like themselves that they can picture that into their future.
Great. Thank you. And I just want to share something about diversity training. In 2017, the DOD did an equal opportunity survey and here's what we discovered. Diversity training is effective and popular, 82 percent of service members reported diversity is important to building a high-quality workforce, 83 percent supported their services diversity efforts, and 75 percent reported that diversity initiatives positively affected their service.
92 percent said that training was effective in reducing or preventing harassment and discrimination. So the people who are serving the vast majority of them say that DEI efforts are in fact effective. I yield back.
Thank you. I yield five minutes for Representative Waltz.
MICHAEL WALTZ:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I just want to start out and -- and make something very clear to all of our witnesses, everybody watching, and my colleagues. We would not be having these conversations if we did not consistently, certainly -- well, I'll say from my perspective, if I did not consistently have soldiers, cadets, family members, and their extended networks incredibly upset, disturbed, offended, and bringing us things like "How to Understand Your Whiteness and White Rage," a lecture taught at West Point.
Taught by a woman who said the Republican Party today, not years ago, not in history as part of a history class. Today as a party of white supremacy, that white people are outraged by the advancement of black people. A lecturer at the United States Military Academy and I can go on and, Mr. Chairman, I'll enter all of these into the record.
Orientation training at the US Air Force Academy. Don't say --recommending to brand new impressionable cadets, don't say mom and dad, say parent. Don't say boyfriend/girlfriend, Say partner, Don't say colorblind. You know, I mean we can -- we can go down the list. So I guess my point is and to my colleagues as well, this isn't coming from us. I think deep down a lot of people think that Republican lawmakers are making this stuff up just to score political points.
I would have no idea about any of it unless I had whole binders full that cadets and soldiers were bringing to us. So what you need to ask yourselves and I said the same thing to your enlisted leaders across the services. Why aren't they coming to your chain of command? I said this to the Air Force Academy superintendent.
Why didn't they feel comfortable coming to him or his chain of command? Why did we have a conservative Muslim cadet who was disturbed and offended didn't feel comfortable? Or a Caucasian cadet who thought they would be canceled? You need to ask yourselves this as we deal with this recruiting crisis and I ask you to pull those filters back and maybe look at kind of the other side of this equation.
So we had the first African-American secretary of Defense order, a service-wide, entire department, 2.5 million members stand down over extremism in the ranks yet -- and we had a hearing in this committee on the same topic. Yet a year later, the Pentagon's own study shows 100 service members out of 2.5 million -- in case everybody wants to do the math, that's 0.0004 percent engaged in any form of extremism.
And we hear a lot about, well, we need a military that reflects society. In fact -- in fact, the military is overrepresented compared to society with by 2020 -- by 2020 figures, 20 percent African American compared to 13 percent -- 18 percent Hispanic compared to 18 percent. So I'm trying to figure out what is the crisis that you're trying to address, Mr. Cisneros?
We have less than 0.001 percent engaging in extremism. We have a representation, a strong representation, a proud representation of -- of minorities within our ranks. Why this Focus on DEI?
I don't think there's a crisis that we're trying to address, but we want to ensure that all individuals --
We had a training stand down from the secretary of Defense is the first order.
Well --
-- Not on accidents, not on planes crashing, not on ships crashing, although those things are happening. We didn't have service wide stand downs then. We had one on extremism in the ranks though their own study showed no extremism.
Well--
-- And we have an overrepresentation. We do have a military that reflects society --
-- There are -- there are --
-- that your colleagues would assert you.
You just said yourself, sir, that there are cases of extremism. Now you may say it's like not that many, but I think 100 --
-- We lose more people in accidents.
100 cases of extremism --
-- Out of 2.5 million?
One hundred too many. I mean we had an individual just this month who got sentenced for trying to as a neo-Nazi who tried to turn his platoon --
-- And that is horrific. I want to be clear and on the record that should always be prosecuted. We should never stand for it any more than we should stand for those tweets. But I want to get -- so the goal is the elimination then of any type of racism in the military? Because racism will always -- always exist.
So we have to look at priorities with limited dollars.
Well, I think we are looking at priorities and Secretary Austin's priorities are defend the nation --
-- Can I just ask you very quickly? What's the difference in equality and equity?
Equal --
Equity is equals outcomes? How do you get equal outcomes in the United States military?
How do we get equal outcomes is by ensuring that everybody is treated equally, ensuring that there is --
That would be equal opportunity, my friend. Equal outcomes is -- is communism.
Well, we want --
Gentleman's time has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yield five minutes Representative Horsford. Representative Tokuda.
[Off-mic]
[Off-mic] is over here
He's next.
So Representative Davis, five minutes. There we go.
DONALD DAVIS:
Thanks so much -- thanks so much, Mr. Chair. And to the witnesses that are here tonight. I want to direct my first question to Mr. Cisneros. In my district, the first Congressional district, there are many rural communities. Recently school administrators have shared with me their concerns about the criteria for maintaining JROTC instructors.
In rural areas in North Carolina, there's clearly student interest in JROTC programs participating and engaging. However, we're experiencing challenges recruiting instructors. So what are your thoughts on how we can engage in rural communities?
Congressman, you know, the JROTC programs are programs that have a wide bipartisan support. I think believe here on the Hill they have the support of the Department of Defense. You know, they are community programs that are used to engage, you know, individuals that are in high school. So they're very popular program schools like them as well.
You know, we want to do what we can to make sure that these programs succeed and also, you know, hopefully with the support of Congress, we can expand these programs into other areas as well.
Are you familiar with any barriers, in particular, in rural communities that we may currently face to actually keep JROTC programs active?
I'm not familiar with any particular program that may be facing difficulties with keeping it active in a rural community. But again, I think we're looking -- we're more than happy to work with your office to kind of find out any solutions or hear about any issues that you may be experiencing in your district.
Thank you and I look forward to that. I want to direct my question to Mr. Wagner and then come back to Mr. Cisneros on this question as well. I'm actually a proud former assistant professor of aerospace studies at Detachment 600, served as the commandant of cadets at the time and at East Carolina University.
I'm so proud to represent Elizabeth City State University, which is an HBCU. The university, they've made significant investments in their aviation program and they are getting great results to get interests amongst students and so forth in the community. They're also interested in activating the Air Force ROTC program.
I understand there's one HBCU in the nation, one in the nation that's actually viable. And my question to you is how do you recommend or suggest that we cultivate and utilize HBCUs, especially those who are actually motivating students towards aviation in space?
Congressman, I'm very familiar with that -- that college. When I was at the Aerospace Industries Association, we developed a partnership with leadership to cultivate students at Elizabeth City. And one of the things and the challenges that we've seen is that we need a better partnership with the American people, but also through their elected representatives to get the word out for what we're doing to encourage ROTC but specifically at HBCUs. You know the Air Force has a program where if you are a freshman in an HBCU, you meet our 2.5 minimum GPA, you meet our medical session standards and you can pass our PT test, you can get a full scholarship for the next three years, including a $10,000 housing allowance.
But let me ask this question, when we're talking one in a nation that's deemed viable and I believe between Host and Crosstown about 15. One. What are we doing to cultivate the relationship and especially when we see areas that are motivating students towards aviation and space? So our -- our viability matrix involves a number of graduates who are able to commission.
So I think it begins with finding a better way to raise the visibility of careers in the Air Force and Space Force, helping people understand what -- what the military is reducing that familiarity gap. And then I think we'll be able to partner aggressively to figure out better ways to attract and then assess more officers, particularly given all the things we're doing with HBCUs.
Mr. -- Mr. Cisneros, give a brief response. Thank you.
We definitely support, you know, our partnerships and relationships at our HBCUs with -- amongst all the services and OSD. Just this past -- just earlier this year, the secretary was down at Howard where the Air Force partnered with Howard University and a number of HBCUs to create a URICA that is going to help fund $90 million of research for HBCUs, led by Howard University that's going to really help raise the level of research and development that's done at those universities and help hopefully raise them up to R-1 -- R-1 status.
Mr Chair, appreciate it. There are other HBCUs. Howard is the one that's viable and I would love to see the secretary make it to others. But thank you and I yield back.
Thank you. Five minutes to Representative Mills.
CORY MILLS:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for everyone's here. You know, I first want to start out by saying that I'm a very proud United States Army combat veteran. Served a lot of my time overseas. Happily spent a lot of that in Fort Bragg in the 82nd Airborne Division where I served with a Cambodian gentleman who was born in Cambodia and lived in Los Angeles.
Served with a black gentleman who was born in Brooklyn. I served with a Caucasian gentleman who was born in Lombard, Illinois. There was quite a bit of diversity. We had come from different walks of life. But what brought us together wasn't DEI and critical race theory based training. It was cohesive training and understanding of what it was to have increased lethality and bring us together knowing that we would be there to fight and protect one another.
Now I want to ask a quick question to all of you. When's the last time each of you had walked through Arlington Cemetery?
Congressman, I was just there last week.
I walk through there almost every day I live in that area and so.
Two years ago, Congressman.
Congressman, I used to be the chief of staff to the Army secretary, which as you know is the executive agent for Arlington. So it's been years but I --
-- Excellent. So -- so then you could all answer this question very easily. How is our headstones aligned? Are they in rows by race or by gender? Or by what their religious belief is or their sexual orientation?
Some of them are done by a religious belief. I believe, those Jewish service members or have a different tombstone than a cross. But you know they are aligned diagonally and make sure their line is in formation.
But -- but is it aligned by their race or by their genders? It's not. I'll help you with that. It's aligned by who you were fighting and who you died beside, what battlefield that you fell on, what ultimate sacrifice that you made for this nation. Now, that seems like a really positive thing whenever you talk about the fact that they didn't look at who it was that I was next to that I died.
But the fact that we were all fighting the same fight because at the end of the day we all bled green. Kind of the military I came from where we believed in increased lethality and readiness and not CRT, DEI, and pronouns. But as I said before, Mr. Cisneros, we absolutely 150 percent can out pronoun every single one of our adversaries.
And China and Russia, I'm sure are quaking in their boots over this. Now, would you be surprised that the American Psychological Association put potential focus on questions regarding the trainings that don't improve diversity or counter bad biases? And according to the APA's literature review, their study actually shows that in fact some studies have indicated that these trainings had the opposite effect.
You see diversity in our military is a good thing and we can all agree to that. But allocating additional training time and starting to identify and ensure that we drive a wedge as opposed to a cohesiveness is not a good thing. And as my colleagues talked about, there should be an equal standard with regards to how we identify racism because anyone can be a racist.
Is that not true?
Racism is not specific to one gender, race or --
-- Thank you so much. Finally, we got an answer out of that one because I know my colleague had been asking for quite some time. And you are a fantastic politician, I will give you that because you have been able to walk around questions and I've seen it multiple times. Since implementing DEI, have we seen our recruitment numbers increase?
Congressman, DEI is nothing new to the department. We've been doing and integrating the force actually since again, since President Truman's --
-- I never had a single hour of DEI training. I can tell you right now. Has DEI, in your term, since you have included it as part of the actual basic combat trainings or boot camps has it increased our recruitment numbers?
Again, this training is not new DEI training --
We had never had it in my military time. So you're going to tell me this was in place when I was in the military? Is that what you're going to tell me?
-- I'm going to tell you when I was in the military, we did have diversity training. We did have equal opportunity training. We did.
Equal opportunity is a totally different thing --
-- Well --
-- than what you're describing and especially when you talk about things like the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Waltz was talking about with regards to white rage training and things like this. And I can tell you that I didn't experience that during mine. Did you experience that during your trainings?
I did not experience that under my training either. But I will tell you from what the superintendent of the West Point has said, they're not conducting that type of training at West Point either.
Do you think that our recruitment numbers are where they need to be at 25,000 in deficit?
I am telling you we do have a problem with recruiting. I do not deny that.
Do you think that has anything to do with the morale that has been killed and determined that DEI and CRT has become the priority over increased lethality and readiness of our US forces?
I would say our readiness of our forces is the most important thing. This nation is ready to be defended by our armed services. And DEIA --
-- Well, then I look forward to you actually prioritizing our actual lethal force strategy as opposed to DEI. Thank you so much. And with that, I yield back my time.
Yield five minutes Representative Sewell.
TERRI SEWELL:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank all of our guests. Today's topic is very important and it saddens me to see that some of our members are using it as an opportunity to focus in on one employee who on their personal email made comments that have -- that have been discredited by the armed services as the barometer for diversity and inclusion efforts in our military.
The reality is as a former lawyer -- reformed lawyer, it's important that we realize that discrimination in the workplace is illegal and we all have a part to play in that. And employers often have training on sexual harassment, on diversity and inclusion. It is an acknowledgment that diversity is truly the strength in our -- in our -- in America.
And it is something that we should take seriously and not politicize or weaponize. With that said, I am the proud Representative of Alabama's 7th Congressional District which is a civil rights district. It includes historic cities like Montgomery and Birmingham and my hometown of Selma. Our forefathers and for mothers, black and white, different religions came together and made this nation realize the -- live up to the ideals, the highest ideals of equality and justice for all.
It saddens me to see that my HBCUs ROTC programs are not up to par. It saddens me to see that we are not trying to give more resources. It's about readiness, right? And we want the very best players on the field and so often some of the very best players don't get a chance to come in because they have not been given an equal opportunity to reach their God-given potential.
One of my colleagues asked the difference between equality and equity. Equality is giving everyone the same opportunity. Equity? Equity is acknowledging that not everybody starts at the same place. And so a reallocation of resources such that some people need a little bit more help to do that. Why? Because of generations of slavery, generations of of redlining.
We could go on and on and on and on about. I mean, it's not disputed, racism in this country. Having said that, we are making progress, but we can only make progress if all of us working together, acknowledge that we have a role to play. Now in the military, I want the very best on that field. I know that our military is already the very best, but it can only stay the very best if we are giving opportunities equally and we're providing resources to those who have systematically and institutionally been left behind.
So I say that to say I'm going to send a letter to Secretary Austin inviting him to Tuskegee to its ROTC program. It may not be one of the -- Howard is one of of the -- is the one of 15 ROTC in HBCUs that's -- that passes the test. And yet we have smart, capable, able, young men and young women in our ROTC programs across this nation in HBCUs. It is a ready made source of talent.
It just is. Ok. Having said that, my question is to you, Alex -- Mr. Wagner. Can you talk a little bit about the rapid -- America's rapid demographic shifts that are occurring right now? Do you agree with me that this is a serious readiness issue if we're not being inclusive in acknowledgment that there are demographic shifts and we're falling behind in the military and recruiting, retaining and promoting?
I do, Congresswoman, and I'd also add that we need to keep pace with America's rapid demographic changes, not only in our enlisted corps, but also in our officer corps. And the Air Force last summer put in place aggressive goals for our applicant pool based on gender and racial and ethnic classifications in order to target resources and to target priority at expanding the pool.
So we can keep pace with America's changing.
And I'd like to say in closing that you have to see it to believe it. You can be told that you have the opportunity, but unless you see it, touch it, feel it, which is why having Secretary Austin, a four-star general come to Tuskegee will show a commitment and a level of commitment from this military that HBCUs matter and that people of color matter.
And we want to touch it, feel it, see it, to really believe that we can achieve it. Thank you.
Gentlewoman's time has expired. Yield five minutes to Representative Alford.
MARK ALFORD:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Kim and our distinguished witnesses for being here today. Appreciate it. Considering the threats posed by China and other adversaries I think these woke programs are really detracting from our readiness. I think we've talked about this before. Since January of '21, the military has spent 529,771 man hours on diversity, equity, and inclusion training, almost half a billion on contract support and administrative costs.
Meanwhile, China is getting ready to invade Taiwan. We've got to be focusing on our adversaries and not our pronouns and not DEI. Americans trust in our military, But it's declining, declining rapidly. We're facing a recruitment crisis, as you know. Only 9 percent of America's youth are even interested. I've got a question, I want all of you to answer if you would, please.
And we'll start with you, Mr. Cisneros. Does our strength in our military lie in our diversity or our commonality?
First, Congressman, let me tell you --
-- Can you just answer the question? Sorry, I've got -- this is a -- I don't have much time. I know we're all tired.
I am trying to answer the question there, Congressman.
Does it does it lie in our diversity or our commonality?
Well, let me say that --
Does it lie in our diversity or commonality?
Our armed services is ready to defend this nation.
Sir!
They are ready to fight --
-- Mr. Cisneros, does our strength of a military lie in our commonality or diversity?
I believe diversity does add a strength to our military --
-- Ms. Schaefer, diversity or commonality?
Diversity.
Mr. Parker?
Congressman, I believe both.
Both?
I believe both.
So you can have it both ways? Diversity and commonality.
Mr. Wagner? Congressman, not only do I not believe they're mutually exclusive, I believe they're mutually reinforcing.
Look, I didn't serve in the military, this man did. Our strength is our unity and purpose. It's the pride in our nation. That's what's lacking. That's why young people are not interested in being in the military. Does the enemy -- does -- does a future Chinese soldier holding a gun or a Russian or an Iranian with their target trained on an American, do they care what color he or she is?
Is that a question there, Congressman?
Yes! It's a yes or no question.
I -- I don't know what the Chinese soldier thinks, but I do know the people --
-- Would you imagine --
-- that the Chinese government has discriminated against people because of their race, their ethnicity, and because of their -- their religion. And that's not the type of military that we want --
-- Do you think a Russian soldiers more apt to -- to kill someone on the battle lines that they have a racial bias against? Is that what you're telling me?
What I'm telling you is because of diversity, we want to ensure that people are able to serve in our military with respect and dignity and knowing that they should do that and makes us a stronger force --
Ms. Schaefer, does the enemy care who's pointing a gun or a missile at the enemy, what gender he or she is?
Again, I can't speak to the Chinese soldiers.
How about you, Mr. Parker. Does the enemy care what pronoun we are using when he or she is pointing a weapon at us ready to kill us?
I cannot speak to the mindset in the hypothetical.
Well, what would you think? Does it even factor in?
You know, I would think in that situation, you know, the, you know, -- the adversary would be looking at the other adversary.
I tell you what. You know, this is a troubling time in America. And I -- I -- I know our freshman class all had a resolve purpose to give up everything they have to be here to do something to help save America. And this DEI is not helping save America. It's helping divide America. And when my friend Cory here talks about Arlington National Cemetery and going down and seeing all those white gravestones, unless you know that person you don't walk over there to that gravestone and you don't know what color that person is that lies in that coffin.
We don't need to just be color blind. We need to walk with unity of purpose. With fortitude and strength that we live in the greatest nation ever and I don't care what color you are. I don't care where you're from. I don't care what pronoun you use. We are in this together and we better get it right. And I yield back --
-- Gentlemen's time is expired. Yield five minutes to Representative Escobar.
VERONICA ESCOBAR:
Well, good afternoon to our panelists. I want to thank you all for your service to our nation and for your testimony here today. I have to tell you, I'm just a little stunned by how this hearing has gone. I -- this is -- I'm beginning my third term in Congress and for the last two terms I have served on the House Armed Services Committee.
And I have specifically selected this subcommittee because I care about our service members. I want to make sure that we are doing everything possible to give our service members the kind of quality of life that they need, the kind of training and support and that we care for their families as well. I never, in my wildest dreams would have thought that this -- the important work of this subcommittee would devolve in this way.
What we've seen here today and frankly it's really embarrassing and it is a little depressing. And just for some background, I heard and I did not want to believe that this subcommittee would essentially be allowed to be deeply politicized for the purposes of performative politics. But that the military personnel subcommittee work that needs to be done would then be relegated to a panel.
So this would be the "woke" subcommittee and the real work would happen through a panel to address quality of life issues. What a waste of resources, time, and energy when we have so much important work to do. And the important work that we have to do really is on behalf of the service members. I know all of you have heard about the second death of service member, a Latina, at Fort Hood, Private Basaldua Ruiz and she -- her family has come forward to express concerns around sexual harassment that she had dealt with in a way that is not dissimilar to what Vanessa Guillen, another Latina service member at Fort Hood who was -- who died while in service had to endure.
And so when my colleagues decry the need to understand what should come with diversity and equity inclusion, it completely dismisses the journey that these families and service members have had to -- to go through. And we should want all of these service members to have a place, so that they can serve side-by-side and defend our country.
So that they can seek a career in the military. So that they can have opportunities. Just as many of the members of this subcommittee have talked about enjoying. But it's -- what is disconcerting is the unwillingness to walk in someone else's shoes or understand what another service member might have gone through.
And I would encourage my colleagues to talk to women's service members, to talk to service members who are people of color, who come from different backgrounds so that they can put themselves in the shoes of another American service member so that we can do the job we were sent here to do. Instead of the performances that unfortunately have taken up too much of our time here today.
Mr. Wagner, I have a question for you. In line with the tragedy of Vanessa Guillen, the tragedy of Private Basaldua Ruiz. This is the Army Pulse survey that was recently released and the -- it was titled "Spotlight on Barriers to Service and in Ranking Overall Barriers to Entry" identified the concern that women and racial or ethnic minorities are discriminated against in the Army.
That was the second most common perception that was held by the study group of potential recruits and it was a diverse group of potential recruits. And if we are saying we want recruitment numbers to go up, we can't -- we have to acknowledge that we want a broad pool, as Mr. Cisneros mentioned. So could you tell us how does this perception harm the ability to recruit service members, especially in the very communities of color that -- that we need to increase our outreach with?
Congresswoman, I'll defer on the specifics of the Army study to my colleague Secretary Schaefer. But what I will say is that the Department of the Air Force is laser focused on making sure that service members where there are disparities in military justice and education benefits and command selection and promotions up and down the chain.
We are -- we are looking for where there are disparities. We had the -- our inspector general in 2020 conduct a comprehensive investigation. We followed it up in 2021 with an additional investigation. Each of those IG investigations produced a series of recommendations identifying the disparities and we're currently undergoing a data-driven process in order to figure out where those disparities exist and put against those disparities key elements to mitigate them.
Gentlewoman's time has expired. I yield five minutes to myself. Secretary Cisneros, how do you eliminate political bias or partisan politics from DEI training?
Congressman, thanks for the question, but when we do die training, we don't emphasize any type of politics. Right? Again, for us, it's about ensuring that people are treated with respect and dignity.
Do you have discussions among your team about how to eliminate partisan politics and ideology from DEI training? Does that discussion ever occur? Have you ever had that discussion with your team?
We haven't had that discussion because that's not what we emphasize or that's not what we're talking about. When we're talking about DEIA, it's ensuring that individuals are able to --
-- Just for the record, I want to make this very clear. You've never had a discussion about how to prevent political ideology from entering into DEI training. That's never happened on your watch.
The any --
-- You're saying it's not necessary. It's not needed. I'm asking you if it's ever occurred and you're saying no.
I'm telling you our focus on on DEI training is about ensuring that individual --
-- Yes or no. Has there ever been a discussion among your team on how to eliminate political ideology from creeping into DE! training?
I will say my team has never had a discussion with me about how to eliminate politics --
Yes or no, Has the discussion ever occurred?
They have not.
Ok. Secretary, are you aware of any promotions that have ever been made in the military at least on your watch, that have ever been based on race or gender? Does that ever occur? Does race or gender ever factor into a promotion?
No. Congressman, I would say that our race or -- does not factor in. The promotions are made on merit.
So you're not aware of any any case where that's ever -- ever any promotion of a uniformed member of our armed services?
Since I have been -- since I've been a member of the Department of Defense serving in the position of undersecretary of Personnel Readiness, nobody has ever brought that up to me that somebody was promoted solely on their their race rather than their merit.
So for the record for each of you and starting with you, Secretary Cisneros, will you personally commit to opposing any effort to promote or recruit service members based on their race or gender? Can you commit to that? At least commit to that personally today?
To solely to not recruit, I believe we need a diverse pool. I believe it's important for us to recruit members that are --
-- You won't commit to opposing efforts to promote or recruit service members based on their race or their gender?
-- I believe it's important to recruit a force that looks like America and I believe that we need to recruit in the Hispanic community. We need to recruit in the black, African American community. We need to recruit in the AAPI community and we need to recruit in the white community.
Ok. What about Secretary Schaefer? Will you -- will you personally commit to opposing any effort to promote or recruit service members based on their race or gender?
Sir, we will abide by all laws, applicable laws regarding promotions. Some of those are tied to NDAA. Things like that --
-- So you won't commit to -- you won't commit to us either. Secretary Parker, will you personally commit to opposing any effort to promote or recruit since members based on their race or gender?
I think it's similar to my colleagues We'll -- we'll abide by the laws [Inaudible] --
-- You won't -- you won't personally make that commitment either. Secretary Wagner, will you personally commit to opposing any effort to promote or recruit service members based on their race or gender?
Mr. Chairman, I believe that promoting solely based on race or gender is inimical to our values as a service. But I will commit to you to continue to do everything possible to reach the broadest segment of America, whether it means increasing the number of women in our force or people of color. And I'll commit to you that we will continue those efforts to have a more diverse force.
Thank you. Secretary Cisneros, how many billets, civilian and uniform, are DEI related in DOD and each service? And what is the total cost to administer DEI training and initiatives?
I do not have the number of --
-- You're in charge of it.
I am. But to say like people were -- people perform many duties, For myself, 'm the chief diversity and inclusion officer, but I'm also the undersecretary of defense for personnel readiness. There's -- it's -- I do not have a number for you to say that these people --
So you're in charge of it. But you can't tell us the total cost to administer DEI or how many billets civilian and uniform in the military are DEI related?
I can tell you that people perform many duties within the Department of Defense and those that that perform DEI are also performing other duties as well. So it's hard to say that I do not have a number for you, but I'll take it back --
-- How many DEI experts do we need in the military?
I don't know if you can put a number on that either. I know we have DEI professionals that are -- do a number of things --
Sounds like you think we need more of them.
I did not say that we need more of them.
Do we -- do we need more of them? Yes or no?
It's --
Well, I believe we have need to have a focus on DEIA.
You can't tell us how much it costs. You can't tell us how much time is geared toward DEI. You can't answer how many DEI experts we need in the department. I think that speaks volumes. I yield five minutes to Representative Kim.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cisneros, you've had a couple of questions come your way about why aren't we hitting our recruitment numbers. And you saw that chart there, they had a really steep cliff in 2020. Can you elucidate to us what might have been happening in the year 2020 that would have hurt our recruitment in this country?
Well, I will tell you what hurt -- definitely what hurt the recruitment was the -- the pandemic that was going on. Recruiters didn't have access to high schools where they could go in and talk with individuals. And they will tell you personally that direct access, one-on-one contact is crucial to recruiting people into the military.
Thank you. Thank you. It's so important that we have this context because I've been listening to this whole hearing and it just kind of boggles my mind honestly in terms of how we're trying to make, you know, what seems like mountains out of molehills here. I mean, it just really feels like we're trying to say that the entirety of the recruitment problem that we're facing is because of DEI and that's just manipulation of data, manipulation of -- and frankly, you know, misunderstandings that are being pushed out to the American people about this.
You know another aspect about it is this conversation makes it sound like that's all we do. That the only training that we're providing to people is DEI. So I guess I just wanted to ask each and every one of you if you have concerns that we are doing this too much, if this is taking away or coming at the expense of other types of training?
So, Dr. Schaefer, why don't we start with you?
Absolutely not.
Absolutely not. I have no concerns.
Mr. Wagner?
Definitely not. And I'd echo the remarks before this subcommittee of the chief master sergeant of the Air Force a couple of weeks ago where she expressed concern that what is hurting our recruiting is characterizing the military as not focused on warfighting and not focused on readiness.
Yeah, no, thank you for that context. That was a very powerful testimony just the other week. You know, there was a number thrown out here at the beginning of the hearing and kind of scattered throughout as well. I was looking it up. It was Chairman Milley said that 5,889,082 man hours have gone towards DEI, the extremist stand down, and other types of efforts during this administration.
So I'm looking at that number and I'm thinking to myself here well, look, we have what an active and Reserve and Guard force about 2.4 million, Is that about right, Mr. Cisneros? So -- so we're going to take that number there. Let's divide it by the number of people that we have to just get a sense of how much time are people being asked to be able to spend on DEI. So we're taking this 5.9 million, 2.4 million, about 2.5 hours.
Does that sound about right of what you're seeing?
Sounds about right, Congressman.
Congressman, so we're spending here this entire hearing, which frankly at this point when we end will be about 2.5 hours maybe. This is what we're talking about. Just the context I want people to understand. Is that we're talking about something that is good for us to do to embrace our diversity, to recognize that some people want us to make sure that we're listening to them, that we see them.
But we're doing it in a way that's calibrated, though doing it in a way that recognizes there's lots of other things that we need to make sure that our service members are able to learn and able to go forward on. And I think that's something that Congressman Bergman was kind of getting at, and I agree with him that we want to make sure that we're looking at the metrics of how effective our military is and whether or not that lethality is continuing to be strong.
So I guess I just want to ask you each here, as we're putting this into context, the challenges we face with recruitment in large part because of the pandemic. That we have DEI training, but it's not something that's overwhelming, taking over the entirety of the training of our service members. But with each and every one of you is your service any less capable or lethal due to this 2.5 hours of training or other types of training that we're doing?
Dr. Schaefer?
No.
Congressman, I believe that anything that creates a stronger, more cohesive team, and many of these trainings do helps us with our lethality and our readiness. So absolutely, I don't believe so.
So, yeah. Thank you. And one thing, Mr. Wagner, I just want to kind of pull on, just I'm running out of time here. As I just thought you had a really eloquent point in your statement that I just want to end here on. You said, "Anyone eligible to serve who meets our high standards and is courageous enough to pledge that they'll support and defend the Constitution should be able to do so." I think that that is what this committee should always focus on and not get caught up in this performative nonsense that sometimes we find ourselves in. So I hope that we can continue to work together in a way that lives up to that statement.
Thank you. And I yield back.
Gentleman's time is expired. Five minutes Representative Horsford.
STEVEN HORSFORD:
Thank you, Chairman Banks and to our Ranking Member, Mr. Kim. I know a lot has been discussed today. I just want to focus on the important role that our military academies play in developing leaders who share the Department of Defense's vision for a diverse and inclusive force. In July of 2022, the GAO recommended that each service secretary ensure that their respective service academies develop and implement diversity and inclusion performance measures to assess the effectiveness of their program and develop a standardized process to document discrimination and harassment allegations that are not entered into the formal complaint processing system.
Can each of you expand on how your service has implemented this recommendation to date?
Congressman, with respect to the Department of the Navy, the Naval -- the Naval Academy is putting performance measures in place. So we are in the process of establishing performance measures even though there still is some work to be done. We have issued policy and with respect to documenting complaints and so we are in the process of documenting this.
When is it scheduled to be done?
I will need to take that back and check to see when the performance measures --
Who's done with their process?
Congressman, my understanding according to the team at the US Air Force Academy we'll complete that by April 7th of this year.
Can you please report back with the structure of those evaluation measurements please? And if I could get the answer for the others service on the record. Service members and their families also, you know, indicate that -- the Blue Star families -- excuse me, from 2021, astudy found that active duty family respondents of color made decisions about military life based on perceptions of racism and fear for their family safety and communities.
The study found that nearly half of active duty, that's 46 percent, of family respondents of color report that they have considered racial ethnic discrimination in their installation ranking decisions and 42 percent consider concerns about safety due to their -- due to their or their family's racial ethnic identity.
So can you please talk about how service members and their families deserve to feel safe in their communities? What are the services doing to address these concerns and what can Congress do to help?
Congressman, I'll take this one on on behalf of the Department of the Air Force. I'm very concerned. It's not only the Blue Star Families study. In 2021, the Association of Defense Communities also surveyed a statistically significant sample of service members and their families and they found that 50 percent of African Americans didn't feel safe in their communities.
I just got back from FE Warren Air Force Base, one-third of our nuclear ground-based triad, where we've had to move four airmen and their families out of that installation because of incidents of racism in the community. What I can tell you is our wing commanders and our numbered Air Force leadership is committed to working with local government officials and in some cases mayors and governors to have a long-lasting, enduring solution.
And what we're doing in the Department of the Air Force is taking a look at how we could partner with Blue Star families and with the Association of Defense Communities to come up with some kind of matrix to give families more information about where they might want to be stationed because they don't always get to pick, but also to incentivize good behavior in these communities.
I think it's imperative as has been stated by several of the members on the committee and we also need to ensure that the values of the US military are upheld in our recruitment practices and that we continue to weed out those with ties to extremist groups or movements. I saw in an earlier study from the University of Maryland that found more than 1,000 people who had been charged for actions taken in connection with the attack on the Capitol, at least 17 percent of those charged appeared to have connections to the military as either active duty members or veterans.
That is why diversity, equity, and inclusion is important, in the military and the private sector and non-profits and yes, in government. And I wish that my colleagues on the other side would spend more time figuring out how we can support our military families with housing, with child care, with food, and not dividing us as a nation, as a country on wedge issues because of race.
-- Gentleman's time is expired --
-- It's unacceptable. It's un-American. --
The gentleman's time has expired. I want to thank all of our witnesses for your testimony, both written and verbal. In closing, as I said in my opening statement -- oh --
Mr. Chairman, I --
[Inaudible] Representative Mills?
I ask for unanimous consent to enter into record this press release from the Department of Defense that is entitled "Department of Defense Announces Recruiting and Retention Numbers for Fiscal Year 2022 through March 20-22nd," which clearly defines that the deterioration and recruiting shortfalls can no longer be solely attributed to the COVID-19 issue.
Without objection, thank you. In closing -- let me start over. In my opening statement, I mentioned that Chairman Milley reported to us that the DOD expended 5,359,311 man hours for Secretary Austin's extremism stand down and an additional 529,711 man hours for DEI specific training. I have not heard a single statement today that defends a single man hour.
I've heard a lot of opinions about why diversity matters and how important that is to the military. And just for the record, 48 percent of service members in our military today identify as racial, ethnic minorities, and/or Hispanic Latino, 40.7 percent of the US population identifies as racial or ethnic minority.
Therefore, the DOD is already more diverse, far more diverse than the entire US population. Our military is richly diverse and I've benefited from that. But none of you today have defended with any empirical evidence, any studies at all that defends a single man hour, over 6 million man hours of DEI training in the United States military.
That's why, to my friends in the minority, that's why this hearing matters. How -- why is it justified? What's the justification for that giant investment? As secretary, you couldn't even tell us how much we're spending on it, how much of our resources are going toward it. I think that's why -- that's why this hearing matters.
That's why we're here today in our seats asking important questions about the priorities of our United States military. So with that, I want to thank all of our witnesses again for providing your testimony. There being no further business, this subcommittee stands adjourned.
Franklin R. Parker
23 March 2023
Subject specific information for the media
Events or announcements of note for the media
Official Navy statements
Given by Navy leadership
Updates on sailors from around the Fleet
Google Translation Disclaimer