DEI-Obsessed Elites Can’t Stand Trump — But Is He Repeating Their Mistakes?
Target of such open vitriol
How America lost its warrior spirit when it feminized its academies
In his opening salvo, the esteemed Scott Yenor righteously scrutinizes the travesty of single-sex education at the Virginia Military Institute. Yenor lays bare the deleterious effects that forced sex integration has had on honor, cohesion, and the society into which graduates of the school march. What he emphasizes less, however, is how the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Virginia fundamentally changed the nature of VMI’s military character and the essential path to reclaiming same-sex spaces for military officer formation.
The key part of Yenor’s essay is his call to create new institutions like VMI — schools that would force a legal and cultural reckoning over sex in education and the military. It’s a persuasive argument because red-state governors already hold the power to act. They can challenge entrenched institutions and build new ones that reflect their citizens’ values.
The modern obsession with sex equality may be the clearest example of how civilian ideology corrupts military formation.
A governor such as West Virginia’s could establish a military academy with full higher-education credentials and an attached ROTC program to train future officers. Its character must be ironclad — steeped in discipline, animated by a warrior ethos, and set apart from the civilian world its graduates would swear to defend.
While offering a four-year degree is necessary to attract those with talent who are willing and able to lead and thrive, this status must not infringe on the mission of the next VMI. This new academy must seek to minimize the distinction between the academic and military spaces to the greatest extent possible. This does not mean that cadets should take exams in body armor, but rather that their college experience should produce elite warrior leaders.
Every class, extracurricular, and academy event should directly relate to the military profession. This would almost certainly mean smaller course offerings, fewer Division I athletics, and fewer civilian professors without military experience. Above all, like VMI, West Point, and the Naval Academy, a student hierarchy (or chain of command) must be the definitive experience of academy life.
The cost of integration
The modern obsession with sex equality may be the clearest example of how civilian ideology corrupts military formation. As Yenor argues, new military academies must be all-male to restore the ideal of masculine virtue and preserve the integrity of a space insulated from the social fashions and ideologies of civilian life.
Male-only environments aren’t just valuable for education — they’re indispensable for building effective military units. The case for single-sex academies rests on a simple truth: Men must train as they fight, and the continuity between those two worlds determines whether they win.
Scholarship from the 1990s first identified how gender integration erodes cohesion and readiness within combat formations. Subsequent physiological studies reinforced the point, finding that women experience higher injury rates and markedly greater attrition in strenuous training environments. Such outcomes in the formative stages of a soldier’s career have profound implications for the design of academies that are meant to cultivate endurance, resilience, and mutual reliance.
The operational record echoes these concerns. The U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s “Women in ARSOF” report revealed deep dissatisfaction among operators, with nearly 4 in 5 saying that integration undermined effectiveness. More conclusively, a 2015 Marine Corps study demonstrated that all-male units outperformed mixed-gender counterparts in speed, lethality, and cohesion.
These findings matter for academies, for they are the crucibles where young men forge the habits of trust and shared hardship that define combat units. If integrated units struggle to match the performance of male-only formations, then academies designed on an integrated model risk instilling the very fissures that later compromise unit effectiveness on the battlefield.
Passing the Ginsburg test
Much of this effort can be accomplished outside of Washington, D.C., but that does not obviate the need for the federal government to adopt policies that will protect male-only military spaces from inevitable legal challenges.
Sec. Pete Hegseth could direct the Department of War to issue a new regulation barring women from ground combat roles. Because their prior exclusion was rooted in departmental rulemaking rather than congressional statute, Hegseth would have authority to act at the direction of the president.
Without decisive national direction, any new academy would stand vulnerable to the same scrutiny that undid VMI’s traditions.
Congress could intervene to block or codify such a policy, but absent legislative action, executive authority would control. Even a layman’s reading of U.S. v. Virginia reveals that such bold policy action is a necessary precondition to building the kind of alternate institutions Yenor identifies as necessary to rebuild sex-segregated education in the military.
Under the heightened “exceedingly persuasive justification” standard, Virginia had to convince the Supreme Court that excluding women from VMI was both essential and well-founded. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed. She pointed to the military’s decades-long inclusion of women in federal service academies as proof that VMI’s male-only model lacked a factual basis. In her view, Virginia’s justifications were speculative and failed the constitutional test she applied.
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The real lesson of U.S. v. Virginia isn’t that single-sex military education is unconstitutional. It’s that such institutions can survive only when their structure aligns with national policy. Ginsburg’s reasoning hinged on the fact that by 1996, women already served in the academies and the armed forces, making VMI’s stance seem outdated. For new male-only academies to endure, they must rise alongside a broader policy shift that treats sex-segregated combat preparation not as exclusion, but as essential to military effectiveness.
Yenor is right that cultural renewal will require state leaders who are willing to build institutions that resist prevailing orthodoxies. Yet even more important is the recognition that law follows policy. Without decisive national direction, any new academy would stand vulnerable to the same scrutiny that undid VMI’s traditions.
The path forward, then, lies in building academies with an unambiguous martial ethos, supported by federal policies that make male-only formation not only culturally defensible but also constitutionally secure. Only then can the United States produce the kind of warrior men upon whom its survival ultimately depends.
Editor’s note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.
From West Point to Woke Point: The long march through the ranks
With Beijing preparing to seize Taiwan and Washington bleeding resources in Ukraine, Americans are asking the question no one in the Pentagon wants to answer: Is the U.S. military ready for World War III? The truth is worse than most people realize.
We’re not even close.
America deserves a military led by warriors, not bureaucrats. The time for excuses is over.
Under the last three Democratic presidents, the armed forces have been systematically weakened. Bill Clinton lowered physical fitness standards to shoehorn women into combat roles. Barack Obama elevated Marxist generals who smuggled diversity, equity, and inclusion into the ranks under the banner of “modernization.” Joe Biden went further, purging the unvaccinated, fixating on gender ideology and climate change, and leaving supply chains dangerously dependent on foreign — often Chinese — manufacturers.
The result is a hollowed-out military that struggles to meet recruitment goals, maintain readiness, or inspire confidence. War Secretary Pete Hegseth has begun the long process of repair — firing the worst woke officers, reinstating real fitness standards, and banning DEI.
But the rot runs deeper. Unless we reform the institutions that produce our officers, we’ll fail at the most important mission of all: restoring the warrior spirit.
Academies in decline
As a West Point graduate, I know the academies’ first duty is to forge warrior-leaders. Everything else is secondary. Yet West Point Superintendent Steven Gilland has traded that mission for racial quotas and “whiteness” seminars that divide cadets and undermine cohesion. The dean even tried to install Biden’s “disinformation czar” as “distinguished chair” of the Social Studies Department — until the Trump administration intervened.
The rot extends across all five service academies. At the Merchant Marine Academy, former Superintendent Joanna Nunan persecuted Christians and promoted transgender ideology until Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy fired her in June.
Civilian faculty have made matters worse. At the Air Force Academy alone, nearly 200 professors push progressive politics in uniform. One mocked her students as “White Boy 1, 2, 3.” Another championed critical race theory and insisted America was “racist from the beginning.” This isn’t military education. It’s Berkeley activism in uniform. And it’s driving away the next generation of patriots.
The Marxist march through the ranks
ROTC programs, which produce most of the Army’s officers, have followed the same Marxist path. Cadets can now major in grievance studies at universities like Wisconsin-Madison, then enter the officer corps unprepared for actual war-fighting. That’s not how you beat China.
Postgraduate institutions such as the Naval and Army War Colleges, Air University, and the National Defense University have become bureaucratic echo chambers for climate activism and social justice rhetoric. Their accrediting agencies enforce DEI mandates and even filed briefs opposing the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based admissions. Civilian faculty dominate the classrooms, feeding officers a steady diet of leftist ideology and contempt for the commander in chief.
RELATED: Memo to Hegseth: Our military’s problem isn’t only fitness. It’s bad education.
This didn’t happen overnight. It’s the product of cultural Marxism’s “long march through the institutions,” a decades-long campaign to hollow out American strength from within. From boot camp to the War College, officers now absorb ideology instead of discipline. The price of that indoctrination will be paid in blood if war comes.
Reclaiming the warrior ethos
The tide is beginning to turn. For the first time in decades, the left is on defense. President Trump has given the military a mandate to purge Marxism and restore its fighting spirit. Patriots across the country are watching — and acting.
Through RestoreTheMilitary.com, we’ve outlined a blueprint to rebuild the force: Fire ideological officers, overhaul the National Defense Authorization Act, remove civilian faculty from service academies, ban DEI, reward war-fighters who risk their lives, and end our dependence on foreign supply chains.
The message to Congress couldn’t be clearer: Do your duty — or step aside. America deserves a military led by warriors, not bureaucrats. The time for excuses is over.
Restoring single-sex education at VMI and beyond
Sex-specific education is essential to preserve America’s self-governing republic. Though many are only now rediscovering single-sex public schooling, there is still space for it to exist within the framework established by the Supreme Court’s 1996 United States v. Virginia decision, as I argue in a just-released “Provocation” for the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. In that decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ruled for the 7-1 majority that the Virginia Military Institute, a public school, must admit women.
The Bush administration sued VMI in the early 1990s, alleging that Virginia’s single-sex military school violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Clinton administration continued the case, and Virginia had to tailor its defense to the reigning civil rights framework. Since VMI’s discriminatory practices faced “intermediate scrutiny” from the courts, Virginia had to prove that its admissions policies supported practices that served important but gender-neutral educational goals.
VMI’s once-famous standards have been eroded, its core values replaced with bureaucratic boilerplate, and its culture hobbled by the artificial imposition of modern sensitivities.
Virginia asserted that men especially benefit from and are attracted to VMI's distinctives, including its Marine-style, in-your-face “adversative” training methods, its lack of privacy, its egalitarian grooming and uniform standards, and its rigorous, stoical honor code.
After proving that its admissions policy matched its practices, Virginia had to prove that the purposes served by the adversative method were legitimate. Under our reigning civil rights ideology, however, VMI had to fight with its strongest hand tied behind its back.
VMI’s defenders could discuss only gender-neutral goals, such as increasing test scores, educational excellence, or maintaining institutional diversity. They could not mention the real reason VMI existed: to point men to a special destiny grounded in manly honor, martial valor, and public-spirited ambition.
Still, VMI prevailed in the lower courts, as the school fostered the diversity of educational offerings in Virginia and elevated the test scores of the men who attended. VMI would, as lower courts held, be “significantly different upon the admission of women,” and the school “would eventually find it necessary to drop the adversative system altogether.”
The Clinton administration appealed the case to the Supreme Court and won.
Ginsburg’s decision, from which only Justice Antonin Scalia dissented (Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself, as his son was enrolled at VMI at the time), now sets the boundaries for sex discrimination cases generally and for single-sex schooling in particular. According to Ginsburg, keeping women away from VMI’s distinctive education could be justified only by outmoded stereotypes about how women are demure, uncompetitive, and domestic.
The notion that admission of women would … destroy the adversative system and, with it, even the school, is a judgment hardly proved, a prediction hardly different from other ‘self-fulfilling prophec[ies]’ once routinely used to deny rights or opportunities. … Women’s successful entry into the military academies, their participation in the Nation’s military forces, indicate that Virginia’s fears for the future of VMI may not be solidly grounded.
All the expert testimony in the world would not shake Ginsburg’s belief that sex differences were culturally contrived, so policies based on claims about sex differences are, on this view, simply stereotypes. Surely American women would adopt the fierce attitudes of Viking shield-maidens (as they appear on television, at least) if given the chance.
“Virginia’s fears for the future of VMI” were indeed very well grounded. Using only publicly available information, my report charts how VMI is no longer what it once was. The school’s once-famous standards have been eroded, its core values replaced with bureaucratic boilerplate, its connections to tradition and the past broken, and its culture hobbled by the artificial imposition of modern sensitivities.
Excellence over equity
In principle, the Virginia Military Institute could keep the same admission standards and adversative training methods while admitting only women — perhaps just a few each year — who can meet them.
Josiah Bunting III, VMI’s president during U.S. v. Virginia, said, “Female cadets will be treated precisely as we treat male cadets. I believe fully qualified women would themselves feel demeaned by any relaxation in the standards the VMI system imposes on young men.”
Every cadet would get the same buzz cut. Every cadet would have to meet the same mile time. Every cadet would be treated the same — like dirt.
In reality, though, the logic of civil rights law would never allow VMI to admit only a tiny minority of women. Instead, future litigation would likely take low female admission rates as evidence that the standards themselves were forms of covert discrimination.
Predictably, VMI changed to pre-empt future legal action.
By the early 2000s, standards had been relaxed across the board to make physical benchmarks more accessible for women to achieve. Male cadets now must perform a minimum of five pull-ups, while one is sufficient for females. Male cadets must run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes, 30 seconds, while females get almost an additional two minutes. In 2001, female cadets were allowed to eschew buzz cuts for more feminine hairstyles. Current hair standards permit females to wear their hair down to their shoulder blades.
VMI’s experience after integration raises a deeper question: Is separation of the sexes healthy only when sanitized, or can it serve the natural differences between men and women?
Most illuminating is the change in VMI’s “Code of a Gentleman,” which was replaced by the “Code of a Cadet” in the early 2000s. In 2022, the school implemented an even more “inclusive” code.
The old code was stoical, demanded silence on private matters (finances, girlfriends), taught sturdy independence within a hierarchy (a gentleman “does not lick the books of those above” nor “kick the face of those below him”), and instilled self-control in matters relating to drink, gambling, and other vices.
VMI contributed to a military tradition dating back centuries, eschewing fads and embracing the Western and Christian traditions. A VMI gentleman was “the descendant of the knight, the crusader … the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice.”
In contrast, under the new code, a cadet aspired to be a social worker, standing “against intolerance, prejudice, discrimination, hate, and oppression.” Nothing situates the cadet in the Western tradition, nor is anything said about justice or any intimation of self-sacrifice or courage. Instead, the new code ends with vague platitudes about ill-defined trendy terms.
A VMI cadet is a well-mannered, respectful, and properly presented individual who holds themself and others accountable for their actions and words as a valued member of the Corps. VMI standards are high for a meaningful purpose — to produce leaders of character. A cadet wears the VMI uniform with pride, always remembering and demonstrating what it means to be a VMI cadet.
The old ethos was republican. The new one is managerial. Students wrote the old code and handed it down by tradition, but it was not formalized or blessed by the administration. Officially, no one had to memorize it. Peers enforced the rules through mentoring and discipline.
Meanwhile, the Code of the Cadet is formal (written by the administration), and cadets must memorize it. The commandant’s office oversees training in the code and punishes violations in consultation with the school’s Diversity and Inclusion Office.
What was once in the hands of the cadets is now in the hands of the administration and managers. Informal oversight has disappeared in favor of formal, legalistic, and administrative demands since the student culture, allegedly a product of racism and sexism, cannot be trusted to take the lead. The diversity, equity, and inclusion revolution of the past 15 years, along with the post-George Floyd fever, has brought further changes.
Even a cursory survey of VMI’s history after U.S. v. Virginia puts the lie to Justice Ginsburg’s blithe insistence that the institution could remain substantially unchanged after the admission of women.
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Seizing the opportunity
Ginsburg left escape hatches for single-sex education, which she thought must not be based on outmoded stereotypes about how men and women are different or their various social destinies. Single-sex must be completely voluntary. The institutions must also be genuinely equal, yet sex-specific.
The experience of VMI after sexual integration raises a deeper question that is obscured by our reigning civil rights ideology: Is the separation of the sexes healthy only when it serves some inoffensive gender-neutral purpose? Or can it be wholesome per se, serving the innate differences between men and women and their somewhat different social destinies?
In order to test U.S. v. Virginia and force the courts to answer this question, a state should establish a VMI-type academy. Under those circumstances, the case against U.S. v. Virginia should not only reassert the record of sex differences since the original case was decided, but also show how the idea of manly honor has been deconstructed at VMI since its sexual integration, defend the public utility of manly honor specifically, and argue (within reason) for distinct sex roles as a positive good.
In its heyday, the Virginia Military Institute stood within a broader social order of single-sex schools and clubs that trained young men and women for distinct but complementary roles. As public approval for such differences waned and policy flattened them into sameness, the institutions that once shaped boys into men and girls into women faded away.
That private system once thrived — and it served the nation’s men and women well. It could do so again.
Today, it would be a radical departure from our co-ed present to create a voluntary track within the public school system for serious sex-specific education. School choice movements make such an option possible, and the declining state of boys and the immiseration of American girls make it more and more necessary.
Editor’s note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.
Woke gym charged white people double to achieve 'true inclusion'
A Canadian gym that claims the fitness industry is dominated by white people has removed a pricing structure that was based on race.
R Studios released a statement in response to online backlash after reports circulated that showed the company offering classes for "BIPOC ... Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour" at half its typical rate. Its usual rate was $30, but the "BIPOC" rate was $15.
'Our mission has always been to create spaces that feel safe.'
As reported by the Daily Mail, not only did the Halifax, Nova Scotia, studio offer a special "BIPOC drop in rate," but a screenshot of an alleged chat with the company revealed users could get a "reduced" membership cost simply for being "a black person."
"Yes, we offer a BIPOC membership option," the company allegedly responded, according to the image.
In response, the fitness studio posted a series of statements to its Instagram account, seemingly admitting to the pricing program.
"Our mission has always been to create spaces that feel safe, inclusive, and welcoming for all people," the post began.
The statement then immediately positioned the company as implementing diversity programs as a method to fight bigotry. Not only did R Studios claim that the fitness industry has "long been predominantly white and often inaccessible," the company seemed to state it has engaged in race-based hiring practices as well.
"We have taken pride in being leaders who actively promote diversity through our hiring practices, in-studio equity and inclusion training, and the creation of our IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility) Committee."
Further cementing that customers are to "feel seen" at the business, R Studios then addressed "feedback and criticism" surrounding its efforts to create a "discounted membership" created by its "BIPOC team and IDEA Committee to help foster diversity and inclusion."
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The post continued, claiming that while R Studios' "initiative was built from a place of compassion and community," the company said it understood that some have interpreted the pricing tiers to be "exclusive."
The company then justified the decision by saying part of its work means recognizing "true inclusion," which involves creating "intentional space for those who have been historically marginalized or excluded."
R Studios further announced that it would be removing all discounted memberships and replacing them with an allegedly "even more inclusive" program to provide memberships for those who face "financial or systemic barriers" but "regardless of background."
On the final page of the post, the company said it remains committed to DEI.
This commitment is still displayed proudly on the R Studios website, where it boasts a land acknowledgement.
"The Rstudios community is currently working to be more inclusive," the statement reads. The company also declares in the acknowledgement "that we are in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People."
It adds, "This territory is covered by the 'Treaties of Peace and Friendship' signed in 1725."
The Mi'kmaq have been noted as being scalpers for pay who tortured prisoners of war from other tribes, which was of course common at the time.
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R studios in Nova Scotia charges double for white people, in violation of Sections 5(1) of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act.
The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission disgracefully made our human rights a fraud during COVID. CEO Joseph Fraser even made up his own extrajudicial… pic.twitter.com/gvfZSV3L7h
— Jeff Evely (@JeffEvely) October 5, 2025
Local political candidate from the People's Party of Canada Jeff Evely commented that he felt the fitness studio was in violation of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act.
"R studios in Nova Scotia charges double for white people, in violation of Sections 5(1) of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act," Evely wrote on X.
Notably, the studio's owner, Connie McInnes, was celebrated by national Canadian bank TD Canada in 2019 for her efforts to create "safe spaces for women."
R Studios did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment regarding race-based pricing and hiring practices.
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Trump says NFL is passing the blame on Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show: 'I don't know why they're doing it'
President Donald Trump pinpointed two main areas of focus when criticizing the NFL's Super Bowl LX plans for February.
During an appearance on Newsmax with host Greg Kelly on Monday, Trump was asked about the NFL's decision to have Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny perform at the annual halftime show.
'I never heard of him. I don't know who he is.'
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, has been accused of being an odd choice for football fans given the simple fact that he performs mostly in Spanish. This is coupled with the artist's criticisms of the president — which include mocking him in a music video — and previous statements about avoiding U.S. cities on his tour because he fears immigration enforcement may occur outside of his concerts.
In a clip from Newsmax, Trump admitted to never having heard of the singer.
"I never heard of him. I don't know who he is. I don't know why they're doing it. It's, like, crazy," the president said. "And then they blame it on some promoter that they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it's absolutely ridiculous."
In the NFL's Super Bowl announcement, the league explained exactly who is in charge of the halftime performance.
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"Apple Music, the NFL, and Roc Nation announced that 3x Grammy Award-winning global recording artist Bad Bunny will perform at the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Sunday, February 8, 2026, airing on NBC," the NFL wrote in a press release.
Apple Music's key figure is listed as Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music and international content.
Roc Nation, the company founded by rapper Jay-Z, has been involved with Super Bowl halftime shows since 2019. In the same press release, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter said Bad Bunny's "unique ability to bridge genres, languages, and audiences makes him an exciting and natural choice to take the Super Bowl halftime stage."
In response to the announcement, Trump administration adviser Corey Lewandowski said there is "nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else."
According to Variety, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called it "a terrible decision" for the NFL to have Bad Bunny perform.
Meanwhile, when hosting "Saturday Night Live" last weekend, Bad Bunny responded to criticisms in a lighthearted manner but also noted in Spanish that the booking was "an achievement" for himself and Puerto Ricans.
He concluded by saying in English: "And if you didn't understand what I just said, you have four months to learn."
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On Newsmax, the president aired another grievance with the NFL, saying, "While we're at it, I'd like them to change the kickoff rule, which looks ridiculous, where the ball is kicked and the ball is floating in the air, and everyone's standing there watching it. It's ridiculous."
The president claimed the new kickoff formation is "not any safer" than the previous format, which the league abandoned before the 2024 season.
The NFL claimed in January, however, that concussions in 2024 were down 43% when compared to the 2021-2023 average.
"I think it just looks so terrible," Trump continued. "I think it really demeans football, to be honest with you. It's a great game, but it demeans football. Do you know what I mean by that? The kickoff rule, the new kickoff rule, it's ridiculous."
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Illegal Alien Who Ran Des Moines School District Had Long History Of Criminal Charges
In the throes of the DEI era the color of Roberts' skin was more compelling than this loaded weapons conviction.Delaware University Won’t Punish Students Who Thanked Charlie Kirk Assassin In School TV Program
Sources say university officials had hoped the despicable incident would just 'go away quietly.' They were wrong.Today's top stories
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