July 8, 2021 6:52 p.m.
The Pentagon on Thursday pushed back at Republican lawmakers who claimed that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued misleading remarks when denying that the department does not have an agenda to teach critical race theory — an academic and legal concept that conservatives have appropriated and hijacked as one of its many faux culture wars.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby hit back at the right-wing outrage to Politico on Thursday.
“There is no contradiction here. The Secretary’s comments stand,” Kirby told Politico. “That a professor at an academic institution such as the Air Force Academy teaches a given theory as part of an elective course does not in the slightest way signify some larger effort by the Department to teach, espouse or embrace said theory.”