A midshipman fighting expulsion from the U.S. Naval Academy over tweets he posted this summer — saying Breonna Taylor received justice when she was killed by police in Kentucky and suggesting a drone strike to stop antifa protesters — is using a controversial Trump executive order to try to sway a Maryland district court judge to let him finish out his senior year.
Midshipman 1st Class Chase Standage said in recent court filings that the university, which claims he violated rules against making political statements on social media and engaged in conduct unbecoming for a midshipman, sought to punish him for his views because they went against what he called the school's anti-racist teachings. He's asking in his complaint to end those teachings based on the notion that they violate President Donald Trump's order that bans the use of federal tax dollars for certain training on racism, diversity and white privilege — concepts the administration said can be divisive and anti-American.
The case highlights the danger the order poses to honest discussions about race and the denial by too many in the U.S. of the systemic inequities that have faced African Americans and other people of color for centuries. Across the country, institutions and groups are canceling programs rather than face scrutiny and lose funding, or using the order to get rid of programs they might not have wanted anyway. The order has also rightfully raised concerns among major corporations, where officials have complained the order could stifle them, and civil rights groups have challenged it in court. These diversity programs and trainings are the very ones that keep many agencies and institutions from turning into white bastions, where people lean toward hiring those who are most like themselves. Achieving change to a system based on race that has been in place for so long requires a deliberateness that diversity programs have long provided. It keeps companies accountable.
But the Trump administration seeks to downplay the role race has played in this country and the idea that the country is fundamentally racist or sexist, although the U.S. was built off the labor of enslaved people from Africa and it wasn't until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that race-based segregation was considered illegal. And that didn't come easily. Many of those alive today lived through that time period and might find it laughable that the Trump administration doesn't want us talking about "white privilege" and the leg up that white men had and still have. (Just look at corporate boardrooms and executive suites.) In fact, "blame-focused," race-based training perpetuates racial stereotypes and divisions, reinforces biases and decreases opportunities for minorities, the administration believes. Instead, Trump and his cronies want us to follow old meritocracy credos "that all individuals are created equal and should be allowed an equal opportunity under the law to pursue happiness and prosper based on individual merit," according to the order. In our dreams. Trump didn't even get to where he is because of meritocracy.
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to issue a slew of executive orders overturning many of Trump's most dangerous decisions. This order should be among those Biden reverses on day one.
The Naval Academy has taken a bold step against racism and is urging its midshipmen to explore the academy's origins. It's the kind of self-reflection all institutions should be doing, particularly in the wake of the calls for equity following the death of George Floyd, while being arrested by Minneapolis police this summer. The reputations of the country's military institutions aren't exactly that of being enlightened. The superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute recently resigned after the state's governor opened an investigation into systemic racism at the institution.
Standage's lawyer said in court documents that his client is not against the academy's position that racism is evil and called it "a laudable assertion of a command ethic." But he wants to see an end to teachings of "critical race theory," the idea of inherent racism and that white people use racism to their advantage. These are fair concepts to explore even if they make people uncomfortable — especially if they make people uncomfortable. Nobody is asking Standage, or anyone else for that matter, to adopt the theories in their own lives if they ultimately decide they don't agree. We as a country, however, can't ignore our roots of racism. It is these types of hard conversations that are needed if we are ever to move to a post-racial America.
