Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, Mr. Banks' amendment to prohibit our Nation's service academies from promoting diverse experiences and backgrounds as part of its missions policy will do nothing but weaken our military. The Supreme Court recently recognized in its decision to leave service academies out of its ruling on affirmative action that our academies are not laboratories for ideological gerrymandering. They are institutions that are foundational to our national security. Our service academies are responsible for providing a higher education but also for training our Nation's men and women to serve as global leaders. Many graduates will serve in the highest levels of our military and government, where success depends on maintaining an open mind, building diverse coalitions, and drawing on broad experiences. They will lead as part of a military that has never been more diverse, more capable, or more lethal. Soon, nearly half of our servicemembers will be people of color, but only a fraction serve as officers and even a smaller fraction as senior leaders. We learned bitter and painful lessons in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, when leaders neither understood nor looked like the formations they led. It is 2023, not 1952.…”