Could the Biden-Harris administration pushing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) pose a threat to national security? Experts say yes.

According to Fox News, this “administration has been conditioning funding at [NASA] to advance research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine (STEMM) on ‘diversity statements’ and equity requirements in what academics are calling a ‘politicized litmus test.’” This, the outlet emphasized, falls in line with the goal this administration had to “overhaul every single agency with the ideals of” DEI, ensuring “there were DEI bureaucracies in place to impose its agendas regularly.”

Concerned experts have noted that these “inclusion plans” have affected “training, internal policies and hiring,” as well as “how federal agencies selectively [fund] and [advance] scientific research.” And reportedly, NASA’s program officer in the Planetary Science Division Amanda Nahm “said that [grant] proposals which do not have the ‘inclusion’ agenda will not be considered because they are ‘non-compliant proposals.’” Nahm also stated, “At their core, inclusion plans are designed to raise awareness of barriers to creating and sustaining positive, inclusive working environments and to get proposers actively thinking about ways to foster inclusive practices for their research teams.” But it would seem this push for DEI is not being received well.

“It’s corrupt, and it is corrupting,” Princeton professor Robert George told Fox News Digital. “Our science has to be the best in the world,” but “if we are not in a position to defend ourselves and to deter that kind of aggression [from adversaries]” due to DEI requirements, then “we’re going to be very, very badly harmed. Our people are going to be very, very badly harmed.”

Chemist Anna Krylovat at the University of Southern California said of the circumstances, “It’s not a cultural war. It’s a war for our future. Unless we divorce this practice, the consequences for everyone will be very grim.” She went on to compare this current situation to Russia “politicizing science” during the Cold War. She explained how there were requirements for researchers in which they were forced “to join communist clubs and to have a ‘perfectly clean allegiance to [the] Communist Party’ in order to get funded and promoted.”

In light of their opposition, both George and Krylovat, as well as other academics, signed a letter in July from the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) calling for an “end to required diversity statements in federal grant funding.” In a guidance statement, AFA wrote, “Though the details of DEI requirements vary across agencies and programs, common features include vagueness of their goals and lack of outcome assessments, along with an implicit expectation of allegiance to a politicized litmus test that is, in effect, compelled speech on a controversial issue in violation of academic freedom.”

It added:

“Though peer review is hardly perfect, its success can be measured by the success of research outcomes and the excellent reputation of the U.S. research enterprise. The recent introduction of DEI considerations into peer review and funding decisions arose from the worthy goals of avoiding bias and promoting equal and fair treatment of all. But as has occurred in other domains, such as mandatory DEI statements in hiring decisions, the role of DEI has morphed from these worthy goals to promoting an ideological and politicized version of DEI that demands equity of demographic workforce outcomes, an approach that is not justified and is likely illegal under existing civil rights employment law.”

The statement concluded that, “rather than advancing … goals, the requirement for DEI plans in grant proposals undermines them — by promoting dissembling and cynicism by applicants, reducing the quality of funded research, threatening academic freedom through compelled speech, and ultimately, increasing public mistrust of science that threatens the entire enterprise.”

David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, commented to The Washington Stand, “Americans should want the very best scientists and those most proficient with the latest technology to be developing our rockets.” However, he concluded, these circumstances just go to show how a “worldview is always just beneath the day’s biggest stories and headlines.”

FRC’s Joseph Backholm agreed, pointing out that DEI “is important to the Biden-Harris administration because their worldview teaches them that group identity categories are the most important thing about a person. So they value things like gender over character and competency.” But, he continued, “When we prioritize the superficial, we necessarily risk sacrificing the critical.”

That’s one reason, Backholm explained, that “we see private companies moving away from DEI — both because it’s counterproductive and because they’re upsetting customers. But NASA’s primary customer is government, which means they’re likely to do what the government wants them to do.” So at the end of the day, he emphasized, “It’s important to have people in government who care about things that matter most.”