The Pentagon has completed a significant portion of its review of nearly 40 defense-related advisory committees.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin suspended the oversight boards back in February to conduct a “zero-based review,” leaving various defense apparatuses without such oversight for more than six months, a majority of the Biden administration’s tenure.
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The review, which halted the appointments of several Trump allies who had been selected by the former president, has been substantially completed, a Pentagon spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
“Largely, the zero-based review committee-level work has been completed, and Secretary Austin is examining the recommendations to determine how he wants to move forward,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough said. “We don’t have any specific announcements to make at this time, but we should be able to communicate in more detail soon about what boards are going to be reconstituted and how they’re going to be both chaired and populated.”
The suspension, however, is “very troublesome” to Col. Mark Anarumo, the president of Norwich University and the former director and permanent professor for the Center for Character and Leadership Development at the Air Force Academy.
He argued in an interview with the Washington Examiner that these supervisory boards, which provide oversight to military academies and other institutions, can be “much more demanding [of] more transparency” and said the suspension “takes away that check.”
“For example, I’m the president of a university,” Anarumo said. “Now, I report to a board of trustees, and that’s really the only check you have from an outside body to say, ‘Hey, what are you doing? You know, please explain this. I would like more information on this topic,’ and they can keep you honest.”
In the midst of the review, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Heidi Stirrup, a member of the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, seeking to get the suspension lifted. GOP Rep. Mark Green, a veteran from Tennessee, joined the suit last week, arguing that Austin lacks the “authority” to halt the board members’ work and is “violating federal law by doing so,” according to a statement.
“It is congressionally mandated. So, it’s law that the board of visitors exists and serves as oversight to military academies,” Green told the Washington Examiner in an interview Wednesday. “If you’re an agency being oversighted in the executive branch, you can’t break the law and just suspend the oversight of you, and that’s — that’s absurd.”
“So, we’re eight months into this administration, and there’s been no oversight to the military academies. Meanwhile, they’re teaching this divisive critical race theory and other things, and so, that’s why I did it,” the lawmaker added, referencing the decades-old theory on race in the United States that has recently come into the national spotlight.
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Critical race theory dates back to the 1970s, and it provides an alternative perspective on the country’s history. Critical race theorists argue that the nation’s foundational institutions are designed to keep white people ahead of minorities, requiring the dismantlement of the system to achieve a more just society.
Opponents of the theory, mainly but not exclusively conservatives, believe that it is divisive because it assigns whites the role of oppressors and people of color the role of victims.
There have been debates about whether the theory should be taught at military institutions.
