Naval Academy Boosting Midshipmen Training….in Gender and Sexuality Studies

Naval Academy Boosting Midshipmen Training….in Gender and Sexuality Studies

We have been keeping track of the march of CRT, DEI, and all things “woke” at the service academies:

• Our Study: Critical Race Theories Have “Established a Beachhead at the Military Service Academies”
• West Point Alum Warns the School is Going Woke

We also reported that the service academies continue to use race as a factor in admissions, even after the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions case, which outlawed such use at civilian colleges as unconstitutional, The Supreme Court Should Apply Its Affirmative Action Ruling to Military Academies.

Well, if critical race theories have “established a beachhead” at the service academies, that “beachhead” is about to expand at the Naval Academy.

From the Daily Wire: Here’s What Naval Academy Students Are Learning In Their Gender And Sexuality Class:

Can being versed in gender and sexuality theory help you be a more effective Navy sailor? The U.S. Naval Academy appears to think it can, and is looking to hire a specialist in Gender And Sexuality Studies to join its faculty for a tenure-track position.

The professor will teach a course that brings Naval cadets up to date on the topics “through a set of focused readings of theories, histories, perspectives, and/or major figures in LGBTQ, women’s and/or gender studies,” according to the course description on the Naval Academy’s website.

The position description for the tenured faculty position indicates that a PhD is required and that the Naval Academy is seeking “a specialist in Gender and Sexuality Studies (open period or genre). We welcome subspecialties in disability studies, film, and multiethnic or global Anglophone literature.”

Why the Naval Academy seeks a PhD with a subspecialty in “disability studies” is a head scratcher given that most “disabilities” are disqualifying for entry into the Naval Academy.

Even worse, the course description for the class that this soon-to-be tenured faculty is going to teach reads, as mentioned, as follows:

Advanced methods of analyzing literature and culture are taught through a set of focused readings of theories, histories, perspectives, and/or major figures in LGBTQ, women’s and/or gender studies. Readings may include Audre Lorde, Sarah Ahmed, Gloria Anzaldua, and Kimberle Crenshaw.

Great, so the English Department at the Naval Academy has an elective that has nothing to do with…..English…..and everything to do with woke “LGBTQ, women’s and/or gender studies.” Okay, but who are these people listed in the description?:

Sarah Ahmed, a contemporary British-born feminist professor of Pakistani and English descent, focuses on the intersection between sexuality, race, and feminism. She is the author of “The Feminist Killjoy Handbook,” which argues that “killing joy can be a radical world-making project.”

“Do you refuse to laugh at offensive jokes? Have you ever been accused of ruining dinner by pointing out your companion’s sexist comment? Are you often told to stop being so ‘woke’? If so, you might be a feminist killjoy — and this handbook is for you,” reads the book’s description.

Gloria Anzaldua, who, like Ahmed, was a lesbian, describes herself as a “Chicana dyke-feminist” as well as a “poet, writer, and cultural theorist.” She writes about [how] her experience as a “Chicana” — a term used by some Mexican Americans to describe their Native Mexican ancestry — intersects with gender, race, and colonialism.

Audre Lorde, yet another lesbian, described herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” She was a professor and progressive activist who was influential in the civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements during the ’70s and ’80s.

The last author on the Naval Academy’s Gender and Sexuality course list is Kimberle Crenshaw, a Critical Race Theory scholar and lawyer who teaches at both Columbia Law School and UCLA and is credited with coining the term “intersectionality,” which is widely used by progressives today to refer to a method of analyzing privilege and discrimination.

Crenshaw, who is black, was also part of the legal team representing Anita Hill at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ Senate confirmation hearings in the 1990s. Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

The Naval Academy’s English Department also, it turns out, has an elective English course entitled “Latinx Studies,” where midshipmen will “explore processes of identity formation through many of its facets, including: class, race, gender, sexuality, and language (among others).”

As an aside, I’d point out that the term Latinx itself is highly controversial and has been disavowed by large swathes of the Hispanic community:

Those critical of “Latinx” say it “anglicized” the Spanish language, ignored the language’s roots, and “is not representative of the larger Latino community,” according to a Pew Research Center survey.

In December 2021, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Hispanic and Latino civil rights organization in the U.S., and Congressman Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., stated they would no longer use the term “Latinx” because it was offensive to some and failed to prove it had a wide acceptance.

“When Latino politicos use the term it is largely to appease white rich progressives who think that is the term we use,” Gallego tweeted.

Arkansas Gov. and former Trump White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order to ban the use of “Latinx” in official government documents, calling the word “culturally insensitive.”

Apparently no one told the Naval Academy.

The Daily Wire also obtained a statement from the Naval Academy about the Gender and Sexuality Studies class:

The Naval Academy defended the course in an emailed statement, saying the Academy “focuses on respect and inclusion of people of all backgrounds in order to develop well-rounded future leaders in the Navy and Marine Corps.”

“A vast array of intellectual ideas, approaches and theories are mentioned during classroom discussions,” the Academy told The Daily Wire. “The Naval Academy educates midshipmen to be critical thinkers who can analyze issues from multiple perspectives and contexts; our focus is on how to think, not what to think.”

Somehow, I doubt there is much tolerance for those who disagree with the premises behind these courses.

In the late 1970s, while a Naval Academy midshipman and Mechanical Engineering major, I opted to take an English elective called “Literature of the Sea,” which I was surprised, and happy, to learn is still offered. That course focuses on the “[s]tudy of sea literature from the epic to the novel, with an emphasis on literary qualities, human relationships with the sea, and problems of command.” My favorite novel from that course, which I still vividly remember, was Nicholas Monsarrat’s “The Cruel Sea.” From Amazon’s description: “A powerful novel of the North Atlantic in World War II, this is the story of the British ships Compass Rose and Saltash and of their desperate cat-and-mouse game with Nazi U-boats. First published to great acclaim in 1951, the Cruel Sea remains a classic novel of endurance and daring.”

The one scene that has stuck with me all these years is the one where one of the ship’s crew members had to isolate a compartment to prevent the ship from sinking due to flooding; the problem being that there were still several shipmates in the compartment who would, therefore, never make it out alive. Chilling. My education from that book alone came in pretty handy later, in my career as the captain of the nuclear submarine USS Toledo (SSN-769). *

The tragedy is, of course, that if midshipmen are taking “Gender and Sexuality Studies” or “Latinx Studies,” they aren’t taking Literature of the Sea, and instead of preparing them for a naval career potentially including command at sea, and the life and death decisions that potentially come with that, these “woke” courses, if anything, are likely to sow division and decimate morale in the Navy.

Shame on the Naval Academy for embracing that.

Why do Naval students have a class about gender & sexuality?

Do we need to go back to no women in the military & don't ask don't tell?

They should be learning how to kill the enemy efficiently & effectively & how to lead others to be the best they can be at the same skills.

— Nonya Beesnees (@NonyaBeesneess) September 5, 2023

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*        I can neither confirm nor deny anything written and/or disclosed in the article I linked to above just before the asterisk.

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