On June 9, 2021, ACU wrote to Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet to stop caving to woke pressure by mandating critical race theory (CRT) training for white, male executives.  It was reported that this training was paid for by taxpayer dollars.  ACU demands that Lockheed Martin cease requiring all such divisive training and stop using taxpayer money to pay for this counterproductive virtue-signaling.

James D. Taiclet
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Lockheed Martin Corporation
6801 Rockledge Drive,
Bethesda, MD 20817

Dear Mr. Taiclet,

It has recently been reported that Lockheed Martin required critical race theory (CRT) training for a large number of your white, male employees. The American Conservative Union is writing to you on behalf of the tens of millions of conservative taxpayers across the country who are members of ACU or who regularly watch our CPAC-related programming.

These patriotic Americans want Lockheed Martin—a strong defense contractor responsible for helping to protect our nation—to stop caving to the unending pressure from leftist activists who will never be satisfied by your attempts to appease their woke pretentions. The bulk of the revenues Lockheed Martin generates come from American taxpayers for the express purpose of providing for our national defense. We want those tax dollars spent for that purpose, not to browbeat honest, hard working people with Marxist dogma.

The tenets of CRT are highly controversial and counterproductive in a genuinely diverse workforce. Your company should not divert taxpayer dollars away from your stated mission of “solving complex challenges, advancing scientific discovery, and delivering innovative solutions to help … keep people safe.” Those people, by the way, are the American people.

The training in question is called “White Man’s Caucus,” and was administered by an outside vendor, White Men as Full Diversity Partners (WMFDP). On its website, WMFDP bills itself as freeing marginalized groups from the “exhausting work of coaching white men to understand their world.” The White Man’s Caucus include sections addressing “whiteness,” “male privilege,” “heterosexual privilege” and “self-interest for white men,” among other topics.

According to a report by journalist Christopher Rufo, attendees of Lockheed Martin’s mandatory WMFDP course were forced to deconstruct “white male culture” and atone for “white privilege.” He writes, “At the beginning of the program, the diversity trainers led a “free association” exercise, asking the Lockheed employees to list connotations for the term “white men.” The trainers wrote down “old,” “racist,” “privileged,” “anti-women,” “angry,” “Aryan Nation,” “KKK,” “Founding fathers,” “guns,” “guilty,” and “can’t jump.”

Needless to say, Americans are appalled to learn the extent of this race-bashing exercise.

Such training is discriminatory on its face. Racism packaged in shiny paper and topped with a bow is still racism, and the same is true for sexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination that the vast majority of Americans flatly reject. Mandating training to inculcate that heinous ideology among Lockheed Martin employees is utterly unacceptable and using WMFDP’s program offerings represents an egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.

Americans want our borders protected and our enemies stopped. Conservatives want Lockheed Martin to use every penny of the taxpayer funds it receives to accomplish these goals. We request a meeting with you to discuss the insidious nature of “critical race theory” and develop plans so that other respectable corporations in America avoid falling prey to the plans of the Left.

The U.S. Constitution expressly authorizes expenditures to provide for the common defense. Since those expenditures come from American taxpayers, they expect a response. We look forward to scheduling time with you to discuss the best ways to keep Americans safe.

In Freedom,

The American Conservative Union