US President Donald Trump is expected to officially move to remove diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives from the defence department, one of several military-focused executive orders he is planning to sign on Monday.
A second order will task US officials with formulating a policy on transgender troops.
A third executive order will reinstate military personnel who were discharged for refusing Covid-19 vaccines.
Removing DEI programmes from within the federal government was one of Trump’s central campaign promises – and one that he moved swiftly to implement upon taking office last week.
The orders, which a White House official confirmed to CBS, the BBC’s US partner, ban what the administration considers discriminatory race- or sex-based preferences by any branch of the military, Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security.
Additionally, any remaining DEI-related bureaucracy will be eliminated from those departments.
Officials also will be instructed to review curricula at military service academies – such as the US Military Academy at West Point or US Air Force Academy in Colorado – for materials deemed to include “radical” DEI or gender ideologies.
Eliminating similar initiatives from the military has also repeatedly been promised by new US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who said on Monday that “there are more executive orders coming”.
Over the weekend, it was reported that the US Air Force was reviewing material on the role of black and female pilots during World War Two from its training programmes as part of an effort to comply with President Trump’s DEI orders.
But on Sunday, military officials clarified that certain curricula will not be removed from basic military training.
Hegseth told reporters on Monday that the job of the military is “legality and readiness and war fighting”.
“Military training will be focused on the readiness of what our troops in the field need to deter our enemies,” he added.
The third order reinstates US military personnel who were discharged for refusal to accept Covid-19 vaccinations during the pandemic.
In his inauguration speech, Trump said that these service members were “unjustly expelled”.
About 8,000 US military personnel were discharged from service for refusing the vaccines – of which only 43 were reinstated before Trump’s return to the White House.
Immediately after taking office, Trump ordered that all US government staff working on DEI schemes were to be put on immediate paid administrative leave.
The White House gave them until 17:00 EST (2200 GMT) the following day to be put on leave before the offices and programmes in question were shut down.
In an order, Trump said that the programmes were “dangerous, demeaning and immoral”.
