When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stood before top generals last Tuesday and blasted the military’s obsession with “wokeness,” he was voicing what millions of Americans already know: our armed forces should be focused on readiness and lethality, not ideology. Yet the rot is not confined to the government. Unfortunately, it runs deep through the private contractors who build our military equipment, betraying the warfighter and threatening national security. For the sake of military readiness, we must end wokeness in our top defense contractors.
Woke Activism In The Defense 5
The five largest U.S. government contractors – Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman – dominate military procurement. Together, they should be laser-focused on engineering excellence and creating the most effective technology in the world. Instead, four of the “Defense 5” contractors have surrendered wholesale to the activist Left.
Consider the most influential activist group on Corporate America, the Human Rights Campaign, who annually pressures corporations to comply with radical LGBTQ policies. Four of the Defense 5 hold a perfect score on the HRC’s so-called Corporate Equality Index, indicating they:
- Recruit employees and choose vendors based on LGBTQ policies
- Force employees to undergo intersectionality training
- Cover transgender-related costs for its employees and their children, including puberty blockers and genital surgeries
- Support at least one LGBTQ organization or event
- Publicly advocate for LGBTQ+ legislation through local, state or federal legislation or initiatives
But the pattern doesn’t stop there. Four of the Defense 5 also signed the infamous Business Roundtable 2019 Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, which asserted that corporations have a “fundamental commitment” to generic “stakeholders” over the traditional principle that corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders. This opened the floodgates to social activism, resulting in Business Roundtable members spending millions of dollars on racial equity causes. Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and RTX subsequently pledged a combined $42 million to organizations focused on DEI and racial equity causes.
According to the Corporate Bias Ratings database at the 1792 Exchange, four of the Defense 5 are classified “High Risk” for often yielding to “political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders.” This defect in corporate governance results in everything from ESG integration to discriminatory charitable giving guidelines to lobbying for bills promoting modern gender ideology. Even General Dynamics, who is rated “Medium Risk” and the only Defense 5 contractor without a perfect score on the CEI, still uses its corporate reputation, funds, and political action to promote activist causes.
How DEI Warped Procurement
The ideological capture present is not just internal – it was baked into the very process of defense contracting. For decades, federal procurement rules mandated “set-asides” for businesses defined by race, sex, or other protected characteristics. Contractors were required to submit Affirmative Action Plans and file EEOC reports. These requirements extended through subcontracting, effectively deputizing private industry into enforcing DEI mandates.
In practice, this meant America’s warfighting capacity was downstream of racial and gender preferences, rather than merit and excellence. How are we supposed to have confidence in our military readiness when our top military suppliers are wasting countless hours and millions of taxpayer dollars on social activism?
To be clear, this wasn’t voluntary. Many contractors felt they had no choice but to comply if they wanted access to lucrative federal contracts. But the legal landscape has changed, leaving no more room for excuses.
DOJ’s New Guidance: Time To End Illegal DEI
On July 29, 2025, the Department of Justice issued new enforcement guidelinesfor recipients of federal funding. The message was clear: discriminatory DEI practices are illegal. Among the now-prohibited practices are race-based quotas, programs, scholarships, trainings, promotions, contracting preferences, access to resources, and more.
Even “neutral” criteria like “cultural competence” or “lived experience” may be unlawful if used as proxies for race or sex. Instead, the DOJ recommends focusing on skills and qualification over everything else. In other words, the government has finally given contractors cover to do what they should have done all along – end their entanglement with divisive DEI schemes.
A Call To The Defense Industry
Defense contractors are not like other corporations. They are supposed to provide America with the strongest, most reliable military equipment on earth. When they put activism before readiness, they betray both the warfighter and the taxpayer.
Secretary Hegseth is right: The Department of War is no longer the woke department. It’s time to end wokeness in the military by demanding our top contractors abandon it as well. General Dynamics proves it’s possible to resist at least some of the pressure. But “least bad” is not good enough. Every contractor must align with the law, the mission, and the will of the American people.
If defense giants want to keep taxpayer dollars flowing, they must focus on building the best weapons in the world – not the best scorecards for activist groups.
Dustin DeVito is the Director of Research at the 1792 Exchange, where he educates the public about the dangers of ESG and advocates for corporate neutrality on ideological issues. He can be contacted on Twitter @DustinDeVito or by email at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Department of Defense)
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