Florida Rep. Mike Waltz (R) continues to question Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the military. This week, Rep. Waltz pressed U.S. Military Academy Superintendents on CRT.
The Florida Republican questioned Superintendents Lieutenant General Steven W. Gilland of West Point, Vice Admiral Sean Buck of the U.S. Naval Academy, and Lieutenant General Richard M. Clark of the U.S. Air Force Academy on CRT being taught in U.S. Military Academies. The questioning took place during a House Armed Service Committee hearing.
During the hearing, Rep. Waltz took issue with CRT being presented to military academies, citing Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility.
Reading some quotes from the book, Rep. Waltz warned that people do not “truly know how divisive and destructive this ideology really is,” referencing DiAngelo’s argument that people “deny the reality of racism in the here and now; and this denial would simply be color-blind racism.”
When asking General Clark if he agreed with the statement, General Clark argued that “she was not indoctrinating.”
“In an institution that is teaching our leaders to defend, and future military leaders to die for, civil institutions that are being described as inherently racist and a class of people because of their skin color, that’s offensive and that runs against your priorities,” he responded.
The hearing comes at a time when Florida is under heavy scrutiny over the Florida Board of Education’s decision to apply new standards to teaching Black history. The new standard has been called “a big step backward.”
Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), argued that “our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for.”
In speaking about CRT, Rep. Waltz expressed, “we want to teach history, of course we want equal opportunity for every American.” In his opinion, CRT “is divisive, this is not what unifies us.”
The hearing can be viewed here.
