Pentagon’s DEI Purge
SECDEF Hegseth’s memo “Restoring America’s Fighting Force Task Force,” was scribed to ensure that DOD works “to provide merit-based, color-blind, equal opportunities to Service members but will not guarantee or strive for equal outcomes.”
All well and good. However, the implementation of the policy has unsurprisingly invoked the laws of unintended consequences.
Restoring America’s Fighting Force
War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge
WASHINGTON (AP) — References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
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Aircraft and fish projects are flagged
In some cases, photos seemed to be flagged for removal simply because their file included the word ”gay,” including service members with that last name and an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.
Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California were marked for deletion, apparently because a local engineer in the photo had the last name Gay. And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish — including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.
In addition, some photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit, were listed on the database, but those may likely be protected due to historical content.
A global word search may identify candidates for inclusion in the DEI database, but a much stricter review must be conducted before anyone or -thing is deleted for the taint of DEI. The first rush to comply appears to be that just that- a rushed job with little thought but for results. This is not acceptable and opens up the DOD for well-deserved criticism if not addressed. The left is already cherry-picking examples of the clumsy approach.
The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities…
The beneficiaries of riding the DEI pony to rank by virtue of race/gender over merit? Well no shit. As for the SECDEF? Take the time to do this right. Hat tip to a Usual Suspect for the inspiration.
Category: Big Pentagon
I’m sure there is a lot of malicious compliance going on as well.
Count on it.
Nobody does malicious compliance as well as an American service member.
You want it done fast, cheap, or right? Pick one (1). Pro tip…there’s only one (1) correct answer.
In the softwear engineering field we would say:
“You may have it fast, You may have it cheap, You may have it right. Pick 2.”
If it was fast & right, it wasn’t cheap.
If it was fast & cheap, it wasn’t right.
If it was cheap & right, it wasn’t fast.
YMMV
Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?
This is the correct line of thinking. Jesus, please stop jamming things through so quickly on the fly and take your time to do it the right way.
Otherwise, don’t complain when some judge overturns hastily half assed work.
Speaking of which, how are you doing, QMC? I know some of the folks who were RIF’d are being rehired, but it seems to vary greatly by which part of the government you’re working for.
Hope you and your family are finding a path through some of the current chaos.
Thanks LC! Doing okay I guess. Got a bit of a mess to clean up soon for my brief period of unplanned Admin Leave, but it looks like I’ll be back at work very soon.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69714275/44/state-of-maryland-v-united-states-department-of-agriculture/
Like I said, follow the rules and guidelines, don’t do a bunch of quick half assed BS and you won’t have to complain when some judge overturns it.
They fixed this one today, at least:
https://www.military.com/history/highest-ranking-black-medal-of-honor-recipient-erased-pentagon-dei-purge.html
Also,
Alarmism from passive resistance?
A computer nerd runs a report looking for certain keywords, then a human (should) review for sanity.
Then a decision is made.
SOP in my experience.
100%.
Anyone who was junior enlisted knows exactly what the fuck is going on.
“My team leader said….”
Well, over correction might be bad, but that’s the game the dems play all day, pushing the goal posts down the road.
First they wanted us to tolerate gays, then they wanted us to accept gays, then they wanted us to celebrate gays, and then they wanted all our kids to become gays.
At what point do we push back?
The best part, I never gave a fuck about gays. They can be all the gay they want. They can get married all they want. I never thought twice about gay people. But they had to make it central to the dem agenda and force it on the rest of society. They overplayed their hand.
They made me anti everything the democrat party stands for. I was living my life quietly in my little corner, trying to scratch a living, not even paying attention to politics, but they couldn’t be happy with America as founded, oh no. They had to fundamentally transform a perfectly fine and very successful experiment in individual freedoms and local government, and kidnap the federal government to force top down transformation of society.
Joe, you ain’t alone.
Jeezus H. Christ…
You can tailor your data base search without that many hits if know what you’re doing. The first run through was obvious malfeasance to ensnare as much data to fit the left’s narrative. Only an asshole or a Leftists Sympathizer would think of deleting the ‘Enola Gay’ or the ‘Tuskegee Airman’. I’m just a Finance guy with an MBA, and I do search databases all day for the smallest details without being drown by numbers from government databases. Imagine if I had a Computer Science degree what I could do? Come correct and do what the SECDEF requires.