'Woke' Defense Department DEI education official's books now in one third of Pentagon schools: Gov't watchdog
Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO and founder of OpentheBooks.com, says controversial books co-authored or contributed to by Kelisa Wing -- chief equity, diversity and inclusion at the Department of Defense Education Activity – are in 49 Pentagon schools
FIRST ON FOX: Nearly one-third of all Defense Department school libraries carry copies of the controversial "racial justice" children's books that were authored or contributed to by the self-described "woke" diversity chief of the Pentagon's education wing, according to a new audit from government watchdog OpenTheBooks.com.
Kelisa Wing has worked as a chief of equity, diversity and inclusion at the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) since December 2021, where she is involved in influencing curriculum and hiring at 160 military schools in the Americas and other portions of the world. She faced scrutiny last fall after OpenTheBooks.com auditors looked through the book catalogs of all DOD school libraries and discovered that 11 schools collectively carried 45 copies of children’s books associated with Wing.
Those numbers, according to the watchdog group's January audit that was shared first with Fox News Digital, have risen 1,200%. A total of 49 schools carry a combined 606 copies of works that were authored or contributed to by Wing.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital in November, Wing co-wrote "racial justice" children's books that said White people must confess their privilege and were de facto hurting Black people by being benefactors of unearned advantages.
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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, right, and chief officer of diversity, equity and inclusion Kelisa Wing. (Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images | YouTube/Screenshot | Kelisa Wing)
Some of the books noted connected to Wing include "What is White Privilege," "What is Anti-Racism" and "What Does it Mean to Defund the Police."
In most of the works, an author’s name appears "with" Wing's, but Wing has denied writing the books. "I want to go on record that I’m not the author of those books," Wing said in an Air Force Times interview, describing her role as a "content adviser."
Speaking to Fox News Digital about the latest audit, Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO and founder of OpentheBooks.com, said the "Department of Defense has strict rules in regard to conflict of interest policies."
"The central question here is whether civilian leadership is subject to the same set of rules regarding those conflicts as military men and women, the rank and file members of the service. If they're not, this raises troubling questions regarding military readiness," Andrzejewski added. "The second reason this report is so important is because this is a new position in the Pentagon's K-through-12 schools, the diversity, equity and inclusion chief, and it touches all aspects of education for 67,000 students, all of our military men and women, our service members. It touches the hiring decisions. It touches professional development and curriculum."
Andrzejewski said the watchdog's findings revealed that Wing's books in the libraries within the Pentagon's K through 12 schools "promote discredited public policy like defunding the police," as well as "Marxist frames, critical race theory frames and radical ideologies."
Kelisa Wing tweets (Fox News, Kelisa Wing and Hedreich Nichols, screenshot/Twitter)
Wing has faced pressure from Republican lawmakers who are frustrated with the controversial titles accompanied by Wing's name being in DOD school libraries, as well as the Biden administration's lack of response on the issue.
In a letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin last November, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. C. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., wrote, "The mission of DoDEA is to provide high quality education to the children of America’s men and women in uniform, not indoctrinate those children with the radical ideologies of those who seek to divide us by race or ethnicity, nor to promote sexually explicit material for child audiences."
"Far Left Radical Kelisa Wing is under investigation for her racist and divisive statements, but Biden’s Department of Defense is allowing her to continue to infiltrate the classrooms and minds of our servicemembers’ children," Stefanik said in a Thursday statement to Fox. "Even though Biden’s Department of Defense has already admitted this is a problem, they have allowed the number of the radical books Wing authored to increase in DoDEA schools during their investigation. Our servicemembers deserve transparency for what their children are learning, not more stonewalling from the Biden Administration."
"It is past time for the Department of Defense to release the findings of Kelisa Wing’s divisive and radical ideology she is imposing in our DoDEA schools," she added. "These radical teachings are one of the reasons I introduced my Servicemember Parents Bill of Rights, which I will continue to advance to support military families and hold the Biden Administration accountable to prioritizing the strength our national defense rather than forcing their woke ideologies on our nation’s military."
Andrzejewski said he and his team have reached out to the Pentagon in two ways for "request for comment and also to produce documents subject to the powerful Federal Freedom of Information Act by filing FOIAs."
"In terms of the comments, the Department of Defense early on responded that she was under investigation. They've since gone silent and not responded to whether or not she actually violated policy, including conflict of interest," he said. "She could have very well had pre-cleared all of this with the department and gotten approval, but the department refuses to respond on the record. We encourage Congress not only to write oversight letters and ask for clarification, but if the department won't respond, use the power of the congressional subpoena to get answers."
Children's book "What Does it Mean to Defund the Police" by Jessica Henry with Kelisa Wing. (Jessica Henry and Kelisa Wing)
Wing first came under fire in September 2022 for several disparaging tweets she made about White people in the past, which led to an investigation being launched on Sept. 19 about her conduct by the Pentagon.
Wing wrote in a series of tweets in June 2020 that have since been taken down: "I’m exhausted with these white folx in the [professional development] sessions."
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"[T]his lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that black people can be racist too… I had to stop the session and give Karen the BUSINESS… [W]e are not the majority, we don't have power," she continued.
"Caudacity" is a slang term that is used to describe audacity demonstrated by White people.
On another occasion, Wing responded to a user who said, "I am exhausted by 99% of the white men in education and 95% of the white women. Where can I get a break from white nonsense for a while?"
Wing responded, "If another Karen tells me about her feelings… I might lose it..."
At the time of her tweets, Wing’s account was set to public, but it was later changed to private.
Kelisa Wing, a DEI chief officer at the Department of Defense education wing, previously wrote in a tweet that she is a "woke administrator." (Twitter/Screenshot, Kelisa Wing)
Wing has defended herself against claims from lawmakers that she made the "racially disparaging" statements, saying in an interview with the Military Times that when she made the statements, she was not speaking on behalf of the DoDEA, but instead as an educator and private citizen.
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"No, I did not make disparaging comments against White people," she said. "I would never categorize an entire group of people to disparage them. I’m speaking now as a private individual, about my private free speech from July of 2022."
Fox News Digital reported in 2022 that on two occasions Wing promoted the anti-police book "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates while representing herself as an employee of the Pentagon's education wing.
Coates wrote in "Between the World and Me" about 9/11 responders, "They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body."
The Pentagon declined to comment on this story.
Fox News' Patrick Hauf, Greg Wehner, and Hannah Grossman contributed to this article.
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