An Army program for selecting unit commanders that a spokesman for Secretary Pete Hegseth condemned as "woke" selected white men for command roles at a higher rate than women and minority officers, according to internal data reviewed by USA TODAY.
Last year, it thwarted a four-star general's attempt to boost an unfit subordinate.
The Army's Command Assessment Program, known as CAP, screened officers for career-defining command jobs by combining a series of physical and mental tests with feedback from previous peers and subordinates. It existed independent of the service's promotion system.
But Hegseth directed the program's cancellation, celebrating the move in a Sept. 3 social media post saying, "Good riddance." Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson, in a statement to USA TODAY, said Hegseth alone ordered the move "because it was a failed, woke experiment."
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