In June, with four months left in fiscal year 2025, the Army announced that it had surpassed its goal of enlisting 61,000 recruits. Female recruitment surged in particular across every branch, a shift many credit to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s return to a “warfighter” ethos.
Yet Republicans in Congress still haven’t done their part to cement this new direction in law.
Congressional Republicans must seek a permanent end to the regime that has so disastrously compromised the military’s lethality.
The misguided and weak leadership of the previous administration allowed the ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion to run rampant at the Pentagon, strangling recruiting efforts and sidelining the military’s true mission.
Under Joe Biden, the Army fell nearly 30,000 recruits short. Misguided priorities drained confidence in the service and hollowed out the ranks. If the “Trump bump” holds, it could reverse those losses and begin restoring the military’s strength and credibility after years of neglect and ideological tinkering.
Lingering progressive activism
Racial and gender identity politics defined the Biden administration so deeply that simple executive orders cannot uproot them — especially in the military. Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s 2022-26 Strategic Management Plan spelled it out, imposing race-based quotas on every service member and civilian across the force.
The Trump administration must insist that Congress make it impossible to return to this decades-long embrace of race and gender essentialism. Such action is necessary for Secretary Hegseth to continue sharpening the edge of American military power with confidence.
Congress has started moving in the right direction. The Senate Armed Services Committee recently advanced the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act with two measures aimed at curbing DEI. Section 547 blocks race and identity from influencing service academy admissions. Section 920 repeals several provisions that embedded DEI in the Defense Department.
These changes, though welcome, fall short. Congress must go farther if it wants real impact. Identity politics must be banned not just in admissions, but throughout the military. And for Section 920 to matter, DEI cannot simply be buried — its presence should disqualify applicants from future government service.
Ending DEI-based admissions
Another urgent target for repeal is the 2021 DEI selection board mandate, which forces military boards to “represent the diverse population of the armed force concerned.” That order undermines their core mission: choosing the most capable leaders to win wars.
Early signals from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees show they recognize the problem, but they have yet to commit to locking in Trump-era reforms. America’s depleted readiness should be evidence enough. Lawmakers must act decisively — restore the military’s lethality and bury DEI for good.
RELATED: How DEI took a sledgehammer to the US military’s war ethos
Photo by Ivan Cholakov via Getty Images
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has pushed consistently to root DEI out of the military. But he works with razor-thin majorities in both chambers, where entrenched Armed Services Committee staff — Republicans in name only — resist meaningful reform.
Trump’s political resurgence leaves no excuse. Republicans in Congress must break this pattern and confront the bureaucrats blocking change.
Republicans have their chance
Lawmakers now face their moment. The current Senate and House drafts of the NDAA fall short. Republicans must seize this chance to codify President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s reforms and restore warfighting as the military’s sole organizing principle.
To end the tyranny of DEI and race quotas, Congress cannot stop at praising executive action. It must legislate a permanent end to the ideology that has gutted readiness and crippled lethality.
Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Military readiness, Dei military, Dei in military, House armed services committee, Diveristy equity inclusion, Pentagon, Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, War, National defense, National defense authorization act