West Point is an echo chamber for divisive identity politics

By John Hughes, MD, USMA ’96

In early April 2023, West Point Superintendent LTG Steven Gilland authorized the following email to all cadets:

“Teammates,

USMA’s Pride Month Observance will take place on Thursday, 27 April 2023 from 1200 -1245. Although a DoD recognized June event, to allow for maximum Cadet participation USMA will observe Pride Month in April. The observance will be held at the West Point Club in the Grand Ballroom.

Our guest speaker for this month is CPT Theodore (Ted) Kostich Jr. CPT Kostich is a class of ’14 USMA graduate and current Adjutant General’s Corps Officer serving as the Strength Manager for 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne).

This will be a buffet luncheon event for cadets (125 seats available) as well as staff, faculty, and employees (50 tickets available) from around West Point. The uniform for the observance will be duty uniform or appropriate civilian attire.

Cadets can sign-up through CIS to attend the event. Staff, faculty, and employees can reserve tickets in advance by emailing MSG XXXX or by purchasing them at the USMA EO Office in Taylor Hall, 7^th Floor starting 20 April 2023. All reserved tickets can be paid for at the EO Office in advance or at the observance and any unreserved tickets will be available at the door on the day of the event. Tickets are $15.00 cash only, please. Doors will open at 1145 for ticket purchase and buffet line.

Celebrating and recognizing the diversity of both civilian employees and Service members across the Department of Defense (DoD); June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Month. It is observed in June to commemorate the riots that occurred in June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan, New York. The event, known as the Stonewall Riots, became the catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world to achieve equal justice and opportunities.

We are looking forward to seeing you there. Please disseminate across your organizations.”

At a recent West Point reunion, graduates confronted West Point’s senior leadership about DEI and its perceived toxic effects on the military. The officer responded to the question with another question – “Isn’t inclusion a good thing?”

At face value, the reply is ludicrous, merely avoiding the minefield of DEI by patronizing the ethics of most patriotic and decent Americans.

Since the founding of the US, Americans have learned to get along and accept those in our lands and military. Admittedly it has not been smooth, but progress takes place. This is no different than observable friction in every other country in the world.

Assimilation into America’s great ‘melting pot’ has been the goal and end state – until now.

Instead, America and its once great military are going backwards, descending into tribalism and identity politics as not a means to an end but an end to itself.

Servicemembers are encouraged to form cliques along racial and sexual identity lines. This mirrors civilian universities that are unveiling dorms that are restricted to certain ethnic and sexual identities and multiple graduations to appeal to each of its sexual and racial subgroups.

Disunity is the new norm. ‘Separate but equal’ is making a comeback under the guise of cultural ‘progress.’ And LTG Gilland is letting this happen.

Repeatedly, SECDEF Austin and the military’s leaders state that DEI makes the military stronger.

To use their own lexicon, this belief is ‘baseless’ as a quick search for data to back up their claim is non-existent. Some military sites leverage RAND corporation arguments that DEI makes corporate America stronger, but even deep analysis there shows that they have no evidence to support this either.

Of course, any organization can be made more powerful by being able to access a larger pool of potential members – ie drawing on a larger pool of Americans that can serve. Equal Opportunity (EO) training and officials have been in the ranks for decades to enforce this concept.

However, to make these new forced quotas the strategic plan for America’s defense in itself is dangerous.

Correlation does not equal causation, but there is growing evidence that the military’s obsession and distraction with identity politics is destroying its capability from both within and without.

Our new woke military is 0-1. No wins, one loss (Afghanistan).

Most successful organizations examine failure and invoke change to fix the problem and prevent future disaster. The disaster in Afghanistan will be examined for years to come.

Reasons for failure include weak generals, greedy military industrial complex, vague/misguided political objectives, etc. Nowhere on the list of faults is a military plagued by racism, sexism, misogyny, bigotry, or any other word being levied against it by its own leadership.

However, the same leaders that lost the war, are inventing new reasons to fail in the next war that were not present during OEF and OIF.

Military organizations need steady streams of dedicated citizen soldiers that work well together with mutual respect.

With less than 1% of Americans having served in ‘America’s longest war’ it is clear that America is developing a warrior caste, for good or ill. This caste is being destroyed from within and being discouraged from serving from without.

Lost wars, self-serving generals, covid vaccine mandates, DEI Stalinistic mandates, and public embarrassments from declining military readiness are encouraging many with invaluable combat experience to leave the ranks of the military.

They are being replaced in part by often weaker recruits fixated on identity politics that current generals are delighted to bring into the ranks to increase ‘diversity.’

Meritocracy and readiness are secondary considerations.

Many in the US public are wise to the disaster unfolding.

It is no co-incidence that Army recruiting that was consistent despite 20 years of lies and strategic losses, faces a crisis now that DEI has taken over the military.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said that solving the service’s recruiting problem is her top priority, but the struggle to find new troops could last into 2024, or longer.

“The number one priority, in my mind, for this year … is fixing our recruiting problem,” she said during a discussion hosted by the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University. “The Army missed its recruiting target last year by about 15,000 people. That is a very serious situation for us.”

She goes on to blame the issue on declining physical fitness among America’s youth and lack of “awareness” of military benefits.”

Publicly, the Army seems oblivious to the reasons for its recruiting failure. Wormuth’s excuses were not reflected in the Army’s decision to implement the disastrous 2022 LGTBQ+ focused recruiting campaign with a cartoon soldier attending the wedding of her ‘two mommies’ as her sole life inspiration.

“Gen. James McConville, the Army’s chief of staff, said the service is undergoing the “biggest transformation in 40 years” with its new recruiting efforts, new doctrines, new organizations and new ways of training soldiers. Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston also stressed the importance of retaining soldiers, not just recruiting them.”¹

It is not far-fetched to assign a large portion of the Army’s recruiting failure to its disastrous DEI and personnel policies.

The Army tacitly acknowledged this by introducing a new series of martial commercials with famed actor Jonathan Majors walking across battlefields that emphasized bravery and patriotism over touchy feely sexual identity commercials of 2022.

However, this approach blew up in the Army’s face as Majors was arrested in March 2023 for alleged “strangulation, assault, and harassment” of a 30-year-old cis-gendered woman in New York. The Army promptly pulled its commercials featuring the star of Creed III, Ant Man, and The Wasp.”² There was no comment about the cis-gendered victim; perhaps cis-genderism no longer matters to the military.

Instead of making the military stronger, DEI is making it weaker…and distracted. The military is clearly distracted.

The Navy had a collision this month launching a ship and several near collisions recently.

Recruiting is down. Morale is down.

West Point seems more focused on its football team and the construction of a several hundred million dollar new stadium than on its honor code, drug scandals, and criminality amongst cadets.

Unconfirmed reports are that West Point is to have its first openly transgender Tactical Officer that will be an advisor to a company of West Point cadets.

With unresolved issues of cocaine, honor code issues, and misconduct tolerated amongst athletes, it is interesting that LTG Gilland is focusing West Point’s efforts on gender identity and enhancing tribalism amongst cadets.

Instead of instilling a ‘one team’ concept at West Point, he seems to be following in the footsteps of the larger US military and society by encouraging a destructive agenda for cadets to think of themselves by their racial/sexual identity and not as Americans defending the Constitution.

This began long before his tenure at West Point, but he is certainly doing his part to elevate it to a higher level.

Just as he pushed the Army’s covid policy that lacked any introspection or research data to support its draconian view, he is pushing gender politics on the Corps of Cadets.

In the US, teenage depression, suicidality, and drug use are at an all-time high. One cause is social media fanning the flames for profits; Facebook admitted this repeatedly in past years and was never investigated or prosecuted.

The number of teens thinking they are transgender has skyrocketed 450x in the past several years, largely due to societal encouragement. This datapoint is not independent of the previously stated sad increase in psychiatric issues amongst US teens. In an April 2023 interview, celebrity transgender Kaitlyn Jenner stated:

“Big government left-wing liberals are all about destroying the family unit, at any cost. That means government gets to take the place of the parents and the families. Trans is not made up or fake, but it is oversaturated due to indoctrination and is the latest way the left is destroying the family unit — growing government, the indoctrination in the classroom, and the subsequent drastic increase in children being transitioned is a huge problem. We won’t see the true impact for years to come – but these are serious irreversible decisions and are maliciously being used by government to grow government under the guise of protecting children.”³

LTG Gilland appears to be obediently turning West Point into an echo chamber for identity politics that is as divisive at USMA as it is in society.

It is doubtful he would allow creation of cis-gendered or non-minority cadet groups to allow them to congregate in the same ‘safe space’ concept that he affords non-cis-gendered and minority cadets. Nor should he. The focus should be on what binds cadets, not what sets them apart.

He is not alone in his pursuits. This article appeared in 2022 to describe obvious anti-cis gender policies at USAFA:

“EXCLUSIVE: The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado is encouraging cadets to apply for a fellowship program for “gender minorities” that specifies “cisgender” men need not apply.The academy sent an email on Sept. 14 informing cadets that the 2023 application for the Brooke Owens Fellowship for “undergraduate women and gender minorities interested in aerospace” is due by Oct. 10.The application on the fellowship’s website says, “If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you.“”⁴

The woes of America and its military cannot be placed on the shoulders of LTG Gilland. He can only influence directly what happens at West Point.

However, his position is designed to be both terminal and independent to be shielded from short term political pressures to do what is right for USMA.

USMA has escaped Congressional attempts at its closure over the years by touting its unique ability to train and field junior officers that will form the ethical nucleus of the Army’s officer corps.

West Point’s current identity political roadmap is bad for both the military and as Jenner points out, bad for family values.

It remains to be seen if LTG Gilland’s intent is to be hostile to both national security and family values.

However, if West Point has bowed to identity politics that are visibly wrecking America’s society and military, then perhaps it is time for new leadership that will focus on the reason it was founded back in 1802.

Or, perhaps that too is unimportant as West Point was founded by cis-gendered white men who are enemies to the new American order and are conceptually contrary to West Point’s apparent current values under LTG Gilland.

John Hughes, MD
Veteran of OIF/OEF
1996 West Point graduate (#1 in class)
3rd generation West Pointer
4 combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan

First published in Armed Forces Press