Biden’s top US general nominee questioned over memo on racial quotas in Air Force recruitment.

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the United States armed services co-authored an August 2022 memo that stipulated preferred racial quotas for Air Force recruiting efforts—spurring criticism from several Republican senators during a July 11 confirmation hearing.

Also touched on at the meeting were military challenges posed by China and Russia—among others—but festered on conservative criticism of Pentagon “woke” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

Air Force commanding officer Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown was nominated in May by Mr. Biden to assume the chairmanship of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Joint Chiefs of Staff to succeed Army Gen. Mark Milley, who is retiring in September.

Gen. Brown—commissioned an Air Force officer 40 years ago—has accrued 3,000 hours flying F-16s over his career, including 130 hours in combat missions.

He has been the Air Force’s highest-ranking officer with a seat at the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 2020.

His July 11 appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee was his first confirmation hearing. There was no vote on his nomination.

Senators queried Gen. Brown on how to counter China in the Pacific—he led the Air Force’s Pacific Command for three years—Russia in Europe, deal with cyber security, build the nation’s defense industry, and sustain flagging modernization during the 240-minute hearing.

The Show-Stopper

But it was Sen. Eric Schmitt’s (R-Mo.) query about 80 minutes into the hearing that underscored GOP ire at the DOD’s implementation of DEI policies that they believe is contributing to the worst recruiting shortfalls in the 50-year history of the nation’s volunteer military.

“General,” the former Missouri attorney general asked, “do we have too many white officers in the Air Force?”

“Senator,” Gen. Brown replied, “what I really look at is the quality of all the options that we have. And we look at that aspect—everyone who’s qualified, who meets the qualifications, is promoted.”

“Well, I would agree with you, but that is not the answer, not consistent with your Aug. 29 [2022] memo,” Sen. Schmitt said.

According to that memo, he said, 67.5 percent of the Air Force’s officers should be white, 15 percent Hispanic/Latino, 13 percent African-American, 10 percent Asian American, 1.5 percent American Indian/Native Alaskan, and 1 percent Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.

“How did you come up with 13 percent should be black? And how did you come up with 10 percent should be Asian?” Sen. Schmitt asked, noting under the memo’s desired racial quotas, the Air Force would need to replace with minorities up to 9 percent of its officer corps—about 5,400 officers—because they are white.

“I’m saddened to see this in this memo,” he added. “There’s this obsession with this sort of race-based politics being interjected into our military.”

Gen. Brown objected to those calculations, noting the memo’s racial quotas were not about force structure, but about recruiting and service academy applications.

“And those numbers are based on the demographics in the nation,” he said.

Regardless, Sen. Schmitt said, “This is a ridiculous conversation, to be perfectly honest,” even if related to recruiting. “Did you contemplate how many black Americans should be in the Air Force? Or how many Asian Americans should be in the Air Force?

“What we looked at was the aspect of providing opportunities for anybody who wants to serve,” Gen. Brown said.

Sen. Schmitt was not dissuaded. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t be asking you these questions,” he said.

“But we have a memo signed by you that you think, right now, there are too many white officers [in the Air Force] in this is a blanket statement.

“And so, I could go down the line of questioning—which of the 5,400 white officers that we have too many of should be fired?”

Racial Quotas Banned

Sen. Schmitt’s questions drew sharp rebukes from Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).

“My understanding is that you want to broaden the recruiting and allow anybody who wants to serve or qualifies to serve, and make sure that people have access to service,” Sen. Duckworth said, before asking, “Or are you actually implementing racial quotas and saying only certain number of Asian, certain number of black, certain number of whites can get recruited?”

“We do not have quotas,” Gen. Brown said. “That’s against policy.”

Sen. Reed said the memo, which was also crafted and signed by the Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall III and Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones, “base operations chiefs,” and many others in the chain of command, “was designed to increase the pool of applicants, essentially to search for more talent. It was not designed to set the composition” of the force.

“It was only application goals. It was not designed to eliminate the opportunities for anyone,” he said, quoting directly from the memo, which states “‘these goals are aspirational in aligning resources to invest in our long-term objectives … and will not be used in any manner that undermines our merit-based processes.’

“So, the memorandum clearly declares that merit is the one standard by which you merit [advancement] in the Air Force.”

“Yes,” Gen. Brown agreed. “As a matter of fact, if that kind of statement was not included, I would not have never signed that letter.”

Sen. Schmitt said regardless of the explanations, the memo is an example of how the Biden administration is imposing its progressive policies on the military and this is causing conservatives—the primary recruiting constituency—to back away from military service.

“This administration has infused abortion politics into our military, COVID politics into our military, DEI politics into our military. It is a cancer on the best military in the history of the world,’ Sen. Schmitt said.

“We ought to have the broadest pool of applicants and get the best and the brightest, and we ought to be recruiting in various areas to make sure we have the best and the brightest regardless of your race or your gender or your ethnicity.

“But that’s not what DEI is,” he continued. “DEI is an ideology based on cultural Marxism and, somehow, someway, we end up in a place where a general in the Air Force is advocating for racial quotas, whether it be by applicants, or the number of officers, or maybe the total unit, and I just think that’s wrong.

“I think that’s the wrong approach. I just don’t know how we can continue to have leadership that advocates for this divisive policy.”

Tuberville Not Lifting Hold

Even if Gen. Brown is confirmed as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his advancement won’t go through until Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) lifts his hold on military promotions.

Tuberville, elected to his first term in November 2020, announced in January 2023 that he would block the Senate’s routine unanimous consent process in advancing hundreds of DOD promotions at the same time in protest of a Pentagon policy that provides support for service members and dependents who must travel out-of-state from where based to receive an abortion.

As a result, according to the Pentagon, command-level promotions have been delayed for 265 senior officers with as many as 650 affected by the end of the year unless the hold is lifted.

As of July 10, with the retirement