Diversity Thursday

...they're burrowing in plain sight...

It has been just about a year since the “new normal” following the defenestration of the divisive and sectarian secular religion of DEI from the Pentagon. Riding on a wave of court cases that continue to take apart decades of sanctioned bigotry, the change was abrupt and— except for the high priests and rent seekers whose entire worldview was bounded by their religion—not really missed all that much.

Do not be complacent.

It is easy to think that this is a permanent “new normal” but that would be an error.

The action in the courts are important. The new leadership’s priorities in the Executive Branch are also important. However, without legislation, the latter is ephemeral. You are one election away. Just one.

As the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia have discovered, a new chief executive can drastically change things. People are policy; law is law.

Even with the law on your side, like we have seen with the recent news from Georgetown and Penn State, the clever will find ways to get back to their preferred discriminatory ways.

Do not think that our Navy will be immune to this from the U.S. Naval Academy to the Naval War College to BUPERS—the three worst offenders when it came to fully embracing the absolute worst cultural Marxism projects.

As one of the non-political professionals at one of those institutions reminded me last year,

…the problematic faculties are just burrowing down like cicadas for the next few years, ready to spring forth when conditions are favorable.

What will spring forth? Well, let’s take a very short trip down memory lane to a few years ago at all three of these locations.

I’ve stated often that the “woke Navy” reached its peak power between 2018 and 2022. Much like its ideological sister, the Soviet Union, it appeared at its strongest right before it collapsed.

That doesn’t mean it is dead. No. Not at all. The Soviet Union may be dead, but communists continue strong. Heck, we have one running Los Angeles and another running New York City.

Back to the topic at hand.

Let’s bookend that low point with a couple of examples along the USNA/NWC/BUPERS axis.

From 2019, let’s look at something that can cover both USNA and NWC.

The editors of the Naval War College Press express their gratitude to the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, whose generous financial support made possible the publication of this historical monograph.

So, congrats to those who give money to the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation (total assets $369 million), you helped pay for, New Interpretations in Naval History, Selected Papers from the Twenty-First McMullen Naval History Symposium Held at the U.S. Naval Academy 19–20 September 2019.

There are 14 papers in the publication. Three of the papers are…interesting for the purposes of this discussion. That represents 21.4% of the papers. A bit more than one in five.

• Climate, Disease, and Colonialism, by Costanza Bonelli.

  • Ms. Bonelli seems to specialize in seeing things through a colonialism/racism lens. Her PhD thesis was on Climate, Race, Colonization. Of course. This might be a two-fer: colonialism and climate.

• The Road to Democracy: Racial Integration in American Military

  Service from World War II to the Korean War, by William A. Taylor.

  • Mr. Taylor appears to be a straight-stick history professor just trying to survive the zeitgeist.

• “Unsuitable” and “Incompatible”: Ensign Vernon “Copy” Berg,

  Bisexuality, and the Cold War U.S. Navy, by Heather M. Haley

  • That was actually her PhD dissertation topic. To help her pursue this topic critical to national security, she got a grant from VMI via, “The John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History & Strategic Analysis at the Virginia Military Institute will award a $5,000 grant to a graduate student in history or a related field working on a doctoral dissertation in Cold War military history, broadly defined.“ Quite broadly, it appears. Congrats VMI alumni. Right after she completed her PhD at Auburn, Ms. Haley (who in her bio insists on putting everyone on notice that her pronouns are (she/her/hers) ), on the strength of her scholarship was hired on at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Of course.

The other 11 papers represent the traditional, exceptional scholarship you would expect from a naval history symposium.

I don’t have to tell anyone that “colonialism, racism, climate, and sexuality” are four of the major parts of the woke catechism of the left. I will note that 0/14 of the articles could even remotely be considered “right-coded” in topic. That is not by accident.

Well, USS Constitution’s Preservation and the Colonial Revival Movement in America, by Margherita M. Desy might be right-coded. IDK.

Should +20% of scholarship be focused on “left-coded” socio-political topics that The Party approves of? Should it be 0%? Should it be a higher percentage? Just a few years ago, the answer would have been, “barely sufficient” after a struggle session on the fact that 11 of the 14 authors were assigned the male gender at birth.

Of course, as late as 2023 people of substance in the naval arena of ideas were quite insistent that The Navy Isn’t Too Woke, so perhaps I’m just imagining things. Non-zero chance.

Now, let’s shift to the other end of the Window of Peak Wokeness™, 2022.

As we all know, accession, promotion, and selection are zero-sum games. To give to one, you have to take from another. Never forget that.

The heart of the Navy’s personnel management is in Millington, TN. They control who gets the “right jobs” etc. What priorities are for selection boards, and so on.

This brief by the then Director of Surface Warfare Assignments is from 2022. Notice what is the top priority.

By 2022, this was old hat. This was already up and running at full speed when I was a Midshipman in Reagan’s second term in office. It just got deeper and wider roots over time. In 2009, Admiral Roughead as CNO started his road show visiting Sailors in Afghanistan by telling them, “Diversity is my #1 priority!” By 2022, it was in a full lather.

We are only a year into a long-awaited correction of unknown longevity.

People are policy, correct? Roughead is long retired, but never forget, the Zampolit and Red Guards during the worst of times have not gone anywhere. Sure, they can delete their twitter accounts, return to sea duty, and get promoted into big-boy flag officer N-codes at OPNAV. IYKYK.

Or, they can return with more power to continue their prior work.

During the darkest years, who was a true believer, who was just following orders, and who was just trying to survive? In a few cases, it is clear, but for most, I don’t know. Each will have to explain things for themselves as best they can.

On balance, the cadre have not gone anywhere. Some are right back at the levers of power, even more powerful than before.

Of note, then Captain Kevin Kennedy, USN gave the brief above. Where is he four years later in 2026? Well, he is back at Millington. This time as he is Rear Admiral Kevin Kennedy, USN, Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel. I hold no brief for or against Admiral Kennedy. Nothing personal. I’m just noticing a trend; he just happens to stick out.

It was decided that he did such a good job his last tour, he was invited back to the command as its number two. Who made that call?