The Daily Caller this week cited a report from nonprofit watchdog group Open The Books that shows teachers at Department of Defense schools are promoting materials that not only push diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) but also train and encourage students to be social justice activists.
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) is a federally operated school system serving the children of military personnel and DOD civilians. Open The Books found that among the resources used by DoDEA staffers is content created by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Imagine being deployed in harm's way and coming home and having your son identify as a daughter, or daughter identify as a son, and then to know that some of the first people in real life who affirm those fantasies for your child were in the school that our government is paying for and that you as a military officer or enlisted man or woman entrusted your children to. It’s horrifying,” Meg Kilgannon, the Family Research Council’s senior fellow for education studies, said on Washington Watch Thursday.
The SPLC’s fingerprints
The SPLC’s “Learning for Justice” program began in 1991. It aims to “dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance human rights” by focused work with “educators, students, caregivers and communities.”
'Laughable, ludicrous' to label pro-lifers as terrorists"For decades, National Right to Life has had a policy against violence. We respect human life; that's why we're pro-life …. We want to protect vulnerable lives, whether they are unborn children or those with disability or the elderly. To think that pro-life people are the ones who are going to harm human life is laughable because that's not what we're about. 
"We do sometimes peacefully protest in front of the abortion facilities. Pro-life people are of course helping with the pregnancy centers. We are a movement that respects human life even if that life is connected to someone who strongly disagrees with us. So, this whole thing to consider pro-lifers terrorists is just ludicrous. "What really floored me was the fact that they had a 'Choose Life' pro-life license plate on the screen as well. The money raised by pro-life license plates is given to pregnancy centers that are helping women through what might be a very difficult time in their lives. So, the whole focus of … using the pro-life movement as an example of terrorism was totally out of bounds." Carol Tobias, president 
"The person who created the slide was obviously uninformed and could not even manage to correctly spell the word 'Roe.' Liberty was extremely irresponsible to allow this nonsense into its training material. It’s absurd when you consider that we are like-minded in our work. We are all working to save innocent lives. Our fight, which, of course, is done through peaceful, legal means, just starts earlier – from the moment of conception. "It is utterly ridiculous that Operation Rescue and other groups that work to defend innocent babies would be put in the same category as groups like the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda that carried out the September 11 attacks." Troy Newman, president |
The military isn’t limiting its attacks on conservative beliefs to its schoolchildren.
A photo from a training session at Fort Liberty near Fayetteville, North Carolina, formerly Fort Bragg, made the rounds on social media this week. In the photo, groups that oppose abortion – specifically Operation Rescue and National Right to Life (see sidebar) – are labeled as terrorist groups in a video slide presented to Fort Liberty personnel.
Elaine Donnelly is president of Center for Military Readiness, a conservative military watchdog organization. She's outraged the Biden Pentagon is labeling pro-life groups as terrorist organizations.
"It is a distorted world," she tells AFN, "and it's driven by the hatred being aimed at any level of conservative involvement by American citizens – [by] the determination to stifle, to censor, to defund, to do things like what you see on that slide … to discredit and defame."
Donnelly, who describes the DoDEA's tactic as "insidious," contends it impacts families directly.
"When people in authority – teachers in school – teach [youngsters] that American institutions are evil and racist and not worthy of support, much less patriotism and love, and their parents [who serve in the military] come and pick them up … this divides families at the most basic level," she explains. "It teaches children that their parents are involved in an occupation that is dishonorable and contrary to what they are learning in school."
All these activities, she argues, are coming from far-left progressives who "want to impose their agenda on every institution in American life with coercion, even if it hurts the institution – in this case, the military.
"That is the definition of 'woke.' It is not hard to define," Donnelly emphasizes.
“Once they work it out with the children, they bump it up to the parents,” Kilgannon warned.
Fort Liberty has issued a statement saying the slides were not properly vetted and promises to do better.
Sneaking around Congress
In 2023 DoDEA told Congress it would eliminate its Diversity Equity and Inclusion department. Instead, it has created a DEI Steering Committee and has moved DEI professionals into less public roles at the agency, Open The Books found.
“These revolutionary activists and ideologues who write this material want to tear down our nation because they hate God, they hate America – and they hate the family unit especially,” Kilgannon told show host Tony Perkins.
DoDEA staffers have confirmed using changing academic standards to increase the amount of DEI topics taught in classrooms.
Children and staff take part in “DEI struggle sessions,” and staffers have been presented with reading materials that rebuke capitalism and traditions like Thanksgiving and America’s existence as a country, Open The Books found.
“I really hope that members of Congress will see fit to do their best to get rid of this kind of thing in that school system and in all school systems because there's no place for it in the American educational system,” Kilgannon said.
Kilgannon said the current mission for DoDEA, led by Director Thomas M. Brady, is consistent with DEI goals pursued in Fairfax County, Virginia, when Brady was chief operating officer there.
“The superintendent of schools for the Pentagon is an 'alumni,' shall we say, of Fairfax County Public Schools, which is known for its woke ideologies as well,” she said.
Fairfax County was found to promote anti-police messaging to kindergarten students in a 2021 report by Parents Defending Education.
Discussions are ongoing for the funding of the annual National Defense Authorization Act. If funding decreases for DoDEA, it will reverse the current trend. Federal spending for the military schools has nearly tripled to more than $70 million annually, Open The Books found.
Ignoring FOIA requests
In addition, DoDEA has been especially secretive about its operations, replying to Freedom of Information Act requests with less than a reasonable level of participation – if they reply at all.
“Requests are often returned heavily redacted, and appeals take months to a year or longer to process,” the Open The Books report stated.
“The fact that it's being done right under our noses with our taxpayer dollars, and we've known about it for a long time … it’s appalling, the men and women who love their country enough to lay down their lives, and we would undermine their children in this way,” Kilgannon said.
