FIRST ON FOX: Republican delegates Michael Waltz of Florida and Jim Banks of Indiana demanded answers from West Point regarding the school’s role-play exercise for cadets about “respecting the pronouns people prefer.”
Fox News Digital has exclusively obtained Waltz and Banks’ Tuesday letter to West Point superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland about a leaked “facilitator guide” for role-playing exercises involving academy cadets.
The exercises are intended as training “for cadets to gain proficiency in their bystander intervention skills” – including when one disagrees with the progressive orthodoxy of the pronoun.
‘WALKNESS’, POLITIZATION OF THE MILITARY ‘ALARMING’, REP. MICHAEL WALTZ
Republican Representatives Michael Waltz of Florida, pictured above, and Jim Banks of Indiana demanded answers from West Point regarding the school’s role-playing exercises for cadets about “respecting the pronouns people prefer.” (CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
Over the past two years, we’ve seen a disturbing trend in our military academies that puts politics before service,” said Mike Waltz, chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Readiness. “We have a duty to ensure that military academies like West Point prioritize the education and training of future military officers rather than executing the political priorities of the Biden administration. Every minute our soldiers spend on sensitivity training is a minute spent at the firing range. Chinese and Russian soldiers certainly won’t be focused on the pronoun used by an American soldier.”
“Cadets were forced to participate in playing favored pronouns during the training time allotted to prevent sexual assault in the military,” Banks, the chairman of the subcommittee on military personnel, told Fox News Digital.
“This illustrates how divisive and radical left-wing ideologies are creeping into our service academies at the expense of consensus and reasonable goals,” continued the Indiana Republican senate nominee. “Chairman Waltz and I will continue to hold accountable partisan officials who poison our military with vigilance.”
According to the “facilitator guide” obtained by Fox News Digital, the fourth role-play scenario for West Point cadets is titled “It’s Not That Complicated” with the subject “Understanding and Respecting the Pronouns People Prefer.”
Republican delegates Michael Waltz of Florida and Jim Banks of Indiana, pictured above, have been outspoken about the politicization in the military, going so far as to cover up a portrait of Jesus Christ at the US Merchant Marine Academy. (CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
Four “characters” are included in the roleplay: Cadet Baker, who holds a cell phone and has a “friend who prefers gender-neutral pronouns;” Cadet Acevedo, who is a “friend who favors respecting pronouns;” Cadet Adams, the “instigator” who “thinks it is wrong to use ‘proper’ pronouns;” and Cadet Cruz, who is “argumentative” and “agrees with Adams” that “pronouns are weird”.
The group facilitator is instructed to read the scenario:
It’s dinner at Grant’s and the four cadets are sitting at a table. CDT Baker receives a call from a friend and takes the call. CDT Baker messes up the way he refers to his friend on the phone and it becomes clear that the friend identifies as gender neutral. CDT Adams and CDT Cruz begin joking about it. CDT Acevedo suppresses the joke and/or tries to teach it.”
Specifically in the scene, Cadet Baker should be “on the phone struggling to get the pronouns right for the friend on the phone” and the “other characters crack jokes and start talking about the concept of pronouns.”
The role-playing game ends when the “quarrel gets heated and it’s clear no one’s going to change their mind”; one “of the cadets storms off because they can’t handle the interaction;” or the “cadets agree to change the subject, respect Baker’s opinion and let it go.”
REP. JIM BANKS DEMANDS ACTION FROM BUTTIGIEG AFTER MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY JESUS ARTWORK COVERED
Other role play scenarios include “Friends in High Places” when dealing with someone who is getting preferential treatment; “Dirty Money” when dealing with “sextortion” and helping a friend seek legal help; and “A Stinky Situation” for confronting “a peer about poor hygiene.”
In the letter, lawmakers thanked Gilland for his work developing the next generation of Army officers, writing that they “recently obtained a document for training exercises during a ‘Dean’s Weekend’ at West Point that we believe disrupts education and training and is needed to shape our future military leaders.”
The legislators noted “that these trainings were mandatory for all cadets, led by cadets and supervised by tutors.”
“The facilitator’s guide depicts an instructional role-playing scenario that focuses on misidentifying gender-neutral pronouns. As chairpersons of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, we are concerned that these types of exercises distract from West Punt’s core mission of developing future wartime officers and further erode trust in our military with politicized, social training,” they wrote. “According to the document, “The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (DoD Sapro) has directed the USMA to of our prevention programs. The survey we are asking you to complete today will support our ability to do this. ‘”
“It is unclear to us as veterans how a preferred pronoun exercise relates to sexual assault prevention in the military or service academies,” the lawmaker added.
The Republican legislators wrote that they “feel that an exercise of this nature is problematic, rejects mainstream viewpoints, and unnecessarily creates conflict between cadets of opposing cultural views, all of which negatively impact unit cohesion.”
“In addition, this exercise represents yet another example of West Point leadership implementing policies and guidelines that encourage cadets to focus on their differences rather than subordinate them to collectively achieve the overall mission and goal,” they wrote. she. “The former is the antithesis of a team, the latter is the essence of a team.”
Waltz and Banks wrote that the “training scenario follows a pattern of disturbing developments from West Point and other service academies in recent years around the politiz concepts taught at the Academy.”
They also pointed to the April 2021 guest lecture by Dr. Carol Anderson of Emory University in February 2021 with a slide titled “Understanding Your Whiteness and White Rage.”
Lawmakers bombarded Gilland with a litany of questions, including confirming the “authenticity of the Cadet Facilitator Guide and role-playing scenario” they emphasized, as well as “whether Critical Race Theory is still included in a course syllabus at the academy.
The letter from Waltz and Banks comes as the military under President Biden’s leadership moves down the left path of wakefulness.
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Republican congressmen have been outspoken about the politicization in the military, going so far as to cover up a portrait of Jesus Christ at the US Merchant Marine Academy.
West Point did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Houston Keene is a political writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @HoustonKeene
