Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will shutter the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS), accusing the 74-year-old panel of “advancing a divisive feminist agenda,” the Pentagon announced Tuesday.
Hegseth “has decided to terminate” DACOWITS, as he believes the committee “is focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness, while [he] has focused on advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a post on social platform X.
The move comes after Hegseth in March announced a review of Pentagon advisory committees, pausing all panel operations and purging all members. The review, completed in May, proposed terminating 14 different defense advisory groups including DACOWITS, a decision decried by Democrat lawmakers.
Established in 1951, DACOWITS runs quarterly meetings to promote military readiness by shedding light on challenges female service members may face that could be overlooked, such as ill-fitting body armor and finding support for parental leave and childcare.
By its own description, the committee “is composed of civilian women and men appointed by the Secretary of War to provide advice and recommendations on matters and policies relating to the recruitment, retention, employment, integration, well-being, and treatment of women in the Armed Forces of the United States.”
Its proponents have maintained the panel does not serve any political agenda or special interest group.
“Throughout its seventy-year history, approximately ninety-four percent (94%) of DACOWITS’ recommendations have either been fully or partially adopted by DOD,” Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), Mikie Sherill (D-N.J.), and Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.) wrote in a May 13 letter to Hegseth urging the retention of DACOWITS.
“Most notably, we are concerned the disassembly of DACOWITS will exacerbate the gap in the collection of data regarding key policies to improve conditions for service women and reduce barriers to the recruitment and retention of women,” the lawmakers wrote.
The panel has already been spared once before in 2021, when a bipartisan group of female vets in Congress pressed then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to keep it during his zero-based review of advisory committees.
Austin’s review was starkly different to Hegseth’s current campaign, as he was assessing whether Defense Department committees sufficiently contributed to the building’s goal of diversity, equity and inclusion. Hegseth, meanwhile, has been a voracious and vocal opponent of DEI within the military.
