DEI May Be Dead, but Its Impact Lingers

Air Force experimenting with diversity in pilot training under scrutiny.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, may be considered dead by some, but in the US Air Force (USAF), the impact is not. In extraordinary efforts to ensure USAF pilots represented the demographics consistent with that of the United States, the air service experimented with the composition of pilot training classes. The goal was not to provide the highest quality graduates but to be confident that identity criteria were met. Consequently, there is a question about the graduates and their performance in achieving the operational mission.

Air Force DEI Program Under Investigation

It is acknowledged that the Air Force set a deliberate course to limit the number of white male officer candidates. According to a Liberty Nation News account, “The Air Force wants the percentage of white males to be reduced from 50% in 2023 to 43% by 2029, a 14% decrease. What makes the USAF program particularly disturbing is that the policy has been pushed by the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Force Management and Integration and the undersecretary of the Air Force.” With the new resident in the White House and an aggressively anti-DEI secretary of defense in Pete Hegseth, one would think the days of identity and minority preference in populating the military’s ranks were over. However, the residual impact of toxic and divisive DEI is lasting. “A military watchdog sued the Air Force Monday [March 3] seeking records pertaining to an experiment run in 2021 that sought to increase graduation rates for women and minorities,” the Daily Caller observed.

According to the latest filing by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) on March 3 against the USAF, the Department of the Air Force has failed to comply with a 2023 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for knowledge regarding the 2021 undergraduate pilot training experiment. “USAF has still not made any determinations about CASA’s FOIA request despite over 518 days having elapsed,” the CASA’s complaint reads. Instead, the USAF has done its legal best to delay, postpone, put “on hold,” request clarification, and insist CASA reduce its “number of search terms” (which CASA declined to do), all designed not to comply with the FOIA request. As the filing states, the USAF has made it a habit over the last 18 months to request iterative extensions to produce the requested documents and information. Had the Air Force just complied from the beginning, the past year and a half would have been sufficient time. What is the Air Force hiding? As an aside, this kind of behavior may have contributed to Secretary Hegseth requesting the current USAF Judge Advocate be replaced.

The 19th Air Force, part of the Air Education and Training Command, is responsible for training “30,000 U.S. and allied students annually in numerous specialties, such as aircrews, remotely piloted aircraft crews, air battle managers, and weapons directors,” Newsmax explained. This responsibility includes undergraduate pilot training. Stepping up, the 19th Air Force assumed the responsibility for conducting the experiment. The hypothesis to be proven was that “clustering” women and racial minorities in a single pilot training class – “America’s class,” as it was named – would improve the graduation rate among this identity-based group. The clustered group comprised 62% women and racial minorities compared to a standard class, where that demographic would be closer to 30%.

Air Force Experiment Doesn’t Make Sense

You might be wondering if the purpose of “diversity” is to achieve the same or better performance by creating a diverse group, why would you create a narrow test population with just women and racial minorities? Good question. As CASA Director James Fitzpatrick told the Daily Caller, “It failed miserably, and some involved were openly skeptical of its legality.”

Again, from the Daily Caller:

“‘When other priorities, like gender or race, are introduced as a metric of assignment and advancement, the foundations of performance-based competition are sacrificed, and the emphasis on safety takes a backseat,’ an Air Force instructor pilot and former trainer for Undergraduate Pilot Training, who spoke on a condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, previously told the DCNF [Daily Caller News Foundation].”

There is another consequence for using gender and race as criteria for hiring and advancement, and this is particularly true for a profession that requires significant mental and eye-hand coordination skills. The stigma of being in America’s class will follow those students. There will always be a question about their competence, having been treated as a special case. Once graduated, each of these newly minted pilots will have to prove themselves beyond what would otherwise be expected. Their peers will ask what other advantages and deference these pilots were given.

It seems DEI was a terrible idea for the military. Perhaps the Air Force should embrace its demise and comply with CASA’s FOIA request. What difference does it make now?

The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.