US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has slammed DEI initiatives and announced the termination of identity month celebrations
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke out on Friday against diversity initiatives in the armed forces, blasting the phrase “diversity is our strength” as the “dumbest” in military history. Addressing Pentagon staff, he said his leadership would focus on unity and fairness while eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
“In this department, we will treat everyone equally,” Hegseth told the audience in the Pentagon auditorium. “We will treat everyone with fairness. We will treat everyone with respect, and we will judge you as an individual by your merit and by your commitment to the team and the mission.”
Hegseth, a former Fox News host and US National Guard veteran, has moved to end DEI, arguing such programs are divisive. He has also halted identity month celebrations, such as Black History Month and Women’s History Month. In his speech, he said such efforts “put one group ahead of another” and “erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.”
Hegseth also talked about global security, saying recent events had damaged perceptions of American strength. He pointed to the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Ukraine conflict, and the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel as signs of instability.
“Chaos happens when the perception of American strength is not complete,” he maintained. “And so we aim to reestablish that deterrence.”
He pledged accountability for the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 when the US-backed government in Kabul collapsed faster than expected.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan, planned by President Donald Trump in his first term, followed a 20-year military campaign that cost billions of dollars and killed tens of thousands. Former President Joe Biden was roundly criticized for his handling of the pull out, in which 13 American service members were killed, and for leaving thousands of allied Afghans behind.
“We are going to look back at what happened in Afghanistan and hold people accountable,” he said. “Not for retribution, but to understand what went wrong and why there was no accountability for it.”
President Trump has pushed back on DEI within the federal government since assuming office on January 20. After being sworn in, he signed a series of orders rolling back protections for transgender individuals and terminating DEI initiatives.
Trump banned transgender people from serving in the US military in 2017. Biden repealed the ban shortly after taking office in 2021, only to have Trump reverse that in his second term. The Pentagon repealed its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011, allowing gay and lesbian troops to serve openly. Gender dysphoria, the clinical diagnosis for many transgender people, was still considered cause for involuntary discharge until 2016.
All branches of the US military are facing some of the worst recruiting shortfalls in their history. Republican lawmakers have blamed the problem on the Pentagon’s prioritization of diversity over military readiness.
A 2021 report commissioned by Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the US Navy was focusing more on “wokeness” and diversity than winning wars.
