Sen Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala, speaks with press reporters outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol on Thursday, July 13, 2023.
Bill Clark|Cq- roll Call, Inc.|Getty Images
WASHINGTON–Sen Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican and previous football coach, stated Tuesday that the U.S. armed force is “not an equal-opportunity employer.”
The armed force is an equal-opportunity company, and the Pentagon has an “Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.”
Tuberville made his remark about the military on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power” as he discussed why he was amongst a minority of senators recently who voted versus verifying Air ForceGen Charles “CQ” BrownJr as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Brown is Black.
“I heard some things that he talked, about race and things that he wanted to mix into the military,” Tuberville stated about Brown.
“Let me tell you something: Our military is not an equal-opportunity employer,” he stated.
“We’re not looking for different groups, social justice groups,” Tuberville stated. “We don’t want to single-handedly destroy our military from within. We all need to be one,” he included.
He likewise stated, “Our military is becoming so political that we’re going to go south when it comes to readiness.”
Tuberville went on to compare the military to a football group, stating “You can’t have different groups. Everybody’s got to be together to win.”
He coached the Auburn University football group for 11 years, beginning in 1998– years after the Alabama university desegregated in 1964 and began confessing Black trainees.
The military started desegregating years prior to that, in 1948, after an executive order from then-President Harry Truman.
And the Defense Department presently promotes a “diverse and inclusive mission-ready total force.”
The Pentagon’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity states it “operates to ensure all individuals are provided a full and fair opportunity for employment, career advancement and access to programs without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, disability (physical or mental), gender, age, sexual orientation,” and other classifications.
Tuberville this year obstructed the verification of numerous military candidates due to his objections to the Pentagon’s policy of covering travel costs and medical leave for service members looking for an abortion.
The Pentagon has stated it would continue offering abortion treatment services under specific conditions in its military centers after the Supreme Court in 2015 reversed Roe v. Wade, the high court’s half-century-old judgment that had actually stated there was a constitutional right to an abortion.
