America’s next defense secretary could also be completely different from any the country has ever seen.

On Tuesday, just in the future after Veterans Day, President-elect Donald Trump chosen 44-year-old Pete Hegseth, a former FOX News commentator and former Army Ranger, to lead one of the crucial powerful military forces on the earth.

Hegseth will succeed Secretary General Lloyd Austin III, the nation’s first Black Secretary of Defense, a historic 2021 selection by President Joe Biden.

Austin, 71, is a four-star general with 41 years of service within the Army. He earned the Silver Star for his leadership within the Iraq War and later, as commander of the United States Armed Forces, oversaw all combat operations in Iraq in addition to military operations in Afghanistan within the 2010s.

Hegseth, a Trump loyalist who previously influenced the previous president to pardon a bunch of military men accused of war crimes, has been outspoken against women serving in combat and critical of what he calls a “woke” military.

“Any general, any admiral, anyone, with ties to DEI or ‘woke’ must go,” Hegseth was quoted as saying on the show latest podcast.

Hegseth can also be a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, universities often criticized by conservatives as bastions of the “liberal elite.” He first served within the Minnesota National Guard, working in finance. A yr later, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay as an infantry platoon leader.

After the Baghdad tour, Hegseth entered politics, forming a conservative group called Vets For Freedom and becoming a television commentator.

Richard Brookshire, Army and National Guard veteran and CEO Black Veterans Projectrespectfully acknowledged Hegseth’s service, which incorporates earning the Bronze Star Medal. However, Brookshire questions the balance between Hegseth’s experience and the seniority required for the position.

Brookshire also noted that DEI efforts, often maligned by conservatives like Hegseth, have played a key role in ensuring that qualified candidates like Secretary Austin are usually not missed.

“I attended the White House Veterans Breakfast the other day, and meeting in person with Secretary Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made me reflect on how they got to their positions – not because they didn’t do a great job, because they absolutely did, but through concerted recruiting efforts in the Black community that began in the 1970s.” Brookshire said. “There has been a commitment to provide pathways that did not previously exist, and now there is an attempt to dismantle those efforts through affirmative action.”

Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst, echoed the concerns of many Americans about Trump’s recent cabinet selections, but Hegseth particularly.

“People argue about DEI and the lack of qualifications, then rave about Pete Hegseth being put in charge of the most powerful military in the world,” Sells wrote on Twitter. “Watching mediocrity rewarded is a hallmark of the Trump administration.”

The Department of Defense oversees a budget of roughly $842 billion– says the department’s website.

Brookshire expressed concern that with President-elect Donald Trump and a possible defense secretary so hostile to diversity efforts, legitimate issues resembling racial disparities in veterans’ disability compensation will proceed to omitted.

For Black veterans, it could actually be life-changing.

“Sometimes my biggest concern is that the civil rights ecosystem is just not being attentive to the military-industrial complex. And so far as I can see, the veteran ecosystem doesn’t care about black veterans. So nobody is actually going to fill that support gap, Brookshire said.

Hegseth will need to be confirmed by the Senate before he officially replaces Austin as Secretary of Defense.

Before Election Day, headline after headline suggested that enormous groups of Black men didn’t intend to vote or would vote against Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy. Following the discharge of exit polls, it is obvious that this fear was misplaced and resulted from misinformation and misinformation. And as we legitimately analyze all of the “hows and whys” the electorate voted the best way they did, it is usually critical that we dispel the parable that almost all Black men were either blithely unaware of their political options or could be easily swayed by misinformation.

2020 exit polls showed that 80% of Black men supported President Joe Biden in 2020. Four years later, polls show that 78% of Black men supported Kamala Harris; a marginal difference of 2%.which is throughout the margin of error and hardly represents a tectonic shift in support for President Trump. In fact, Black men supported Harris greater than another male demographic group — especially in key swing states. In Michigan, for example, nearly 9 in 10 black men voted for Harris, in response to the info exit polls from the Washington Post.. And for the record, 91 percent of black women voted for Vice President Harris.

These results weren’t a shock to me and my team on the stadium Global Black Economic Forum because in our work now we have seen that black men have all the time been part of her support. In fact, we have had rather a lot of discussions on this topic in our virtual voter registration and awareness town halls, Paint the surveys black. And while Black Men are on no account a monolithic voting bloc, Kamala Harris has repeatedly made a powerful case for sustained leadership and economic policies that may improve our lives. The undeniable fact that her candidacy was not successful with a majority of voters shouldn’t be placed on the shoulders of black men. However, many elected officials and pundits have laid the groundwork to position blame on black men if Trump wins. By using racist tropes that Black men fall for every product Trump sells, now we have been used as a crutch to sow discord and spread disinformation.

Every student of history knows that these disinformation campaigns are nothing latest. It’s a convention that dates back to Reconstruction, when former slave owners commonly misled and intimidated Black people into not voting. While the methods and technologies for spreading disinformation have modified and develop into more sophisticated, their intentions haven’t modified. This election cycle, we saw an enormous increase in AI-related images suggesting that Black voters – especially men – supported Donald Trump, when most of these images were false. According to A BBC Panorama reportTrump supporters intentionally targeted black voters with deepfakes showing that black voters support him.

But now that the votes have been counted, we should always take this moment to do not forget that a majority of Black men didn’t give the White House to Trump. We want the chance to construct economic security and wealth, receive inexpensive health care, live in communities that usually are not affected by violence, and live in a rustic where our civil rights are protected.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump proposed a framework that pitted our fight for fair treatment against the search for economic opportunity, as if these concepts were mutually exclusive. And on top of that, he repeatedly attacked Kamala Harris dehumanizing and racist tropes. Trump also went to this point as to suggest that almost all Black people would discover together with his current legal entanglements – dared to check his situation to the racial disparities and injustices that black men face within the criminal legal system. As more polls and analyzes of the election emerge, the decision on this issue is obvious: A majority of black voters paid attention.

Disinformation campaigns proceed. As we move forward, we must make a more concerted effort to know Black male voters — and not only during presidential election season. If we do that, we can have more comprehensive data that reflects what people actually consider and may help us higher thrust back against these false narratives.

Black voters (including Black men) will proceed to be on the front lines, fighting for each economic opportunity and social justice, as we remain unwavering and unwavering in our commitment to fight for each our wallets and our dignity.

President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education is being criticized as a possible whitewash of the American education system and a challenge to Title I and Title VI that would prevent funding for special education, school lunch programs, and the possible cancellation of summer schools.

Duncan fears “the whitewashing of our history” and adds: “We have to worry about defunding the most vulnerable groups in society. Title I Money for Poor Children – money for children with special needs or school lunches – anything that can be taken away.”

He continued: “Focus on after-school programs and summer schools may be taken away. Access to higher education – may be restricted.”

Duncan, also A Howard University’s board of trustees has expressed concern about HBCU funding during the second Trump administration. During Trump’s first term, his adviser Steve Bannon argued that committing to more funding for the institution after a White House meeting with Trump can be unconstitutional, justifying concerns that such conduct constitutes discrimination against other races and ethnic groups.

HBCU supporters are concerned about whether or not they can be funded at the appropriate level. Historically, HBCUs have needed more funding, especially amid challenges from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning race-based admissions to predominantly white colleges, also often called affirmative motion. Applications to HBCUs are on the rise, causing schools to fret about housing capability, scholarships and sophistication sizes.

Former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., said Trump’s education proposals are “appalling.”

Jones continued: “The Department of Education is also responsible for investigating anti-Semitism on college campuses, which Republicans say is important to them.”

He added: “But when the rubber meets the road, (Republicans) will quickly abandon it, undermining this important federal department.”

As President-elect Trump prepares to take the oath of office in roughly 70 days, IMD’s Global Competitiveness Center Competitiveness Report 2024 ranks American educational standing twelfth in the world.

Trump said he desires to “fire the radical left accreditors who have allowed our colleges and universities to be dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics.”

In recent years, some Republican governors have opposed the College Board’s accreditation of an AP African-American studies course that provided college credit.

Bumbaugh believes that anything that just isn’t directly related to federal funding is an area government issue for schools. However, he said, voters could have a say in that call because “it will likely be through school board elections and then through state-level elections, similar to governors, where the governor selects state education chiefs.”