President Donald Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth have claimed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are finished, but is that really the case?
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” which required the elimination of DEI performance requirements in federal agencies. Four months later, in April, War Secretary Hegseth took to X to affirm “DEI is DEAD at DOD.”
As we said from day one: DEI is DEAD at DOD. pic.twitter.com/0hl49kpINe
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) April 18, 2025
War Secretary Hegseth once again expressed his views to eliminate “toxic ideological garbage” from the military during his Tuesday morning speech to several hundred of the nation’s top military officials. He said, “No more identity months, DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions,” he said. “As I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, we are done with that s—.”
However, Dr. Rick Addante, a neuroscientist and former tenured psychology professor with 25 years of experience in academia, has revealed a significant challenge to eliminating DEI that’s hiding behind the veil of education. He declares “DEI is not dead; it’s very much alive,” particularly in academia.
Earlier this month, Dr. Addante unveiled a startling three-minute undercover compilation video from a meeting reported by James O’Keefe, CEO of O’Keefe Media Group. The video reveals the university president at Florida Tech candidly plotting to circumvent federal and state regulations that prohibit DEI programs, while also acknowledging their focus on U.S. Space Force training programs as a reaction to DEI policies put in place by the Trump administration.
Hey, @SecDef: DEI is NOT “Dead at DoD”, – I caught it on tape being covertly laundered through woke Universities lying about complying, to indoctrinate our warriors and military leaders with CRT & DEI, who take their civilian teachings right back to the DoD. Its paid for with… pic.twitter.com/pUENmOy3Ri
— Rick Addante, PhD (@RickAddante) September 1, 2025
The Gateway Pundit spoke to Dr. Addante, a former Air Force Auxiliary captain and NASA mission crew member. He said he was “fired from a tenured position for having spoken out about the hidden DEI lies by the Florida Tech University President.” He also said he was “offered $96,000 in hush money to keep it quiet and not sue the university, [which he] rejected to speak the truth.”
What is one of his primary concerns? As stated in the September 1 X post, he argued, “DEI is clearly being laundered back into the Department of War, with academia serving as a Trojan horse.” He explained, “Department of War funds are being used to educate soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines, Coasties, and Space Force Guardians, and the federal money sent to the institutions teaching them is being used to indoctrinate them.”
The whistleblower said, “You can get rid of all the PowerPoints that include the words DEI and all that nonsense, reshuffle some personnel or some offices and policies, but institutions are still lying about complying with the DEI directives, and that results in laundering DEI right back into the military from the outside academic institutions that train them. That is, they’re being duped on DEI, [as] it’s entrenched, and the enemy is within.”
He poses the question of what will happen if educational institutions persist in teaching DEI and Critical Race Theory (CRT) ideologies to students while falsely claiming to be in compliance. “How can you expect military personnel and students who are being taught to hate America to defend the nation or fight for it?” he asked. “That’s an existential problem for the Department of War, [pointing out] they are paying for the poison with federal funds via GI Bill, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Non-University/University Affiliated Research Centers (N/UARC), and more.”
The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) states, “UARCs … have a set of core competencies that are tailored to the long-term needs of the Department of Defense,” and received $1.5 billion in federal funding in fiscal year 2021. And according to Dr. Addante, “[They] hide that they don’t comply with DEI.”
For him, “It’s one of the leading insider threats, and it needs to be taken seriously as a core ‘force readiness’ issue.” Consider the War Department’s recently having to impose disciplinary measures on service members due to social media posts that celebrated the political assassination of American citizen and conservative activist Charlie Kirk. He maintains, “Their public response revealed the problematic ideologies they’ve been taught, which stem from universities and are then taken into the Department of War.”
“If they’re going to say it in public, what are they saying behind closed doors and implementing as leaders?” the former psychology professor asked, asserting, “this is a Trojan horse and it will keep coming into the War Department from the outside training.”
To meet the problem head on, he wonders, “Do we need to dry up the funds going to these universities?” The Department of War sends millions of dollars to universities with students participating in ROTC programs and GI Bill benefits, and many also receive major federal funds from DARPA and N/UARCs, he said. “These are the same universities indoctrinating our future military leaders and potential warfighters.” For some, he argued, “it might be time to cut off the spigot.”
“You can’t rely on universities to check a box and self-certify they are in compliance with Trump’s executive order,” said Dr. Addante. “They’ll lie to keep the millions of dollars of federal assistance from the government … we caught it on video, and then they laughed about it, too.” For this reason, “There needs to be a system where there are actual audits of these universities’ compliance.”
One approach he proposed was “a DEI czar with a tiger team or ‘red cell’ approach” to root out external fund recipients hiding DEI. “After 25 years in academia, I know where the bodies are buried and I’d gladly assist in the auditing process,” offered Dr. Addante. “Stripping words about DEI off a website is not enough, and odds are statistically that these universities will never get caught as they continue to push problematic ideologies that will undoubtedly filter it into our military.”
Dr. Addante stated that beyond education, DEI significantly influences the field of clinical psychology, which subsequently impacts military readiness. “The field of psychology is statistically populated by a leftist ideology that is often anti-American,” he claimed. “The field is 85 percent woke, white women who are somehow supposed to understand our warriors in need.”
“When soldiers need a mental health support system for grief counseling or PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), the very people they are being sent to probably hold a completely different belief system than the person seeking help,” he alleged. “While thinking a soldier is a racist or a fascist for being emotionally disturbed by the death of Charlie Kirk or going to war where deaths happen, we’re expecting a woke therapist who believes in DEI/CRT to compassionately and properly treat that patient who loves, lives and dies for America?”
“How could they possibly empathize and understand?” Dr. Addante questioned. “This manifestation of DEI as a Trojan horse in psychology also undermines extended care for families, too, via programs such as preservation of the total force.”
Click here to view a recent STARRS Town Hall talk from Dr. Addante, featuring more details on the War Department being deceived by the Trojan Horse of DEI.
The post Explosive Video: Trojan Horses in the Fields of Education and Psychology Undermine War Secretary Hegseth’s Objective to Remove ‘Toxic Ideological Garbage’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.