Biggest Military Funding Bill Still Allows Promoting Soldiers By Race And Sex

Five months ago, in these pages I expressed concern that Congress was missing the opportunity to restore merit to the military personnel system. To accomplish that task I urged Congress to include a meritocracy provision in the 2026 NDAA that does four things: (1) require all military personnel actions to be based exclusively on merit; (2) forbid race and sex-based preferences; (3) provide for reasonable exceptions when mission success requires sex or race be considered; and (4) define key terms so idealogues in the Pentagon cannot manipulate the language to further their diversity agenda.

When the House and Senate passed their versions of the NDAA, it appeared that between the two chambers some progress toward establishing a merit-based personnel system was being made. When the compromise bill resolving the differences between the House and Senate version, S. 1017, was released last week, it was readily apparent that Congress had no intention of requiring merit principles to govern military personnel actions. To make matters worse, the drafters employed smoke and mirrors to put a merit-sounding title on a provision that just reinforces the Biden-era identity preference status quo.

What's Not in the NDAA

The bill passed by the House had a provision that would have specifically forbidden the use of race or ethnicity in personnel actions except for certain special operations missions. It also required all personnel actions to be based “exclusively on individual merit, fitness, capability, and performance.”

While it did not address sex-based preferences, it did put Congress on the same page as the administration insofar as racial discrimination was concerned.

The initial Senate version, on the other hand, lacked any attempt to restore a meritocracy or to eliminate identity preferences. Had the final version negotiated between the House and the Senate accepted the House provision it would have been a big improvement. Instead, what we got was a provision that, when viewed in context, sends the unmistakable message that race and sex-based preferences are alive and well in the military personnel system.