Testimony of Lecia Brooks Chief of Staff, Southern Poverty Law Center before the Armed Services Committee United States House of Representatives Extremism in the Armed Forces March 24, 2021 My name is Lecia Brooks. I am chief of staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on extremism in the U.S. Armed Forces and what we can do to address this challenge. Now in our 50th year, the SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people. SPLC lawyers have worked to shut down some of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups by winning crushing, multimillion-dollar jury verdicts on behalf of their victims. We have helped dismantle vestiges of Jim Crow, reformed juvenile justice practices, shattered barriers to equality for women, children, the LGBTQ+ community, and the disabled, and worked to protect low-wage immigrant workers from exploitation. The SPLC began tracking white supremacist activity in the 1980s, during a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and other organized extremist hate groups. Today, the SPLC is the premier U.S. nonprofit organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists. Each year since 1990, we have conducted a census of hate groups operating across America, a list that is used extensively by journalists, law enforcement agencies, and scholars, among others. The SPLC Action Fund is dedicated to fighting for racial justice alongside impacted communities in pursuit of equity and opportunity for all. Along with our partners, we work primarily in the southeast United States and have offices in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. The SPLC Action Fund promotes policies and laws that will eliminate the structural racism and inequalities that fuel oppression of people of color, immigrants, young people, women, low-income people, and the LGBTQ+ community. Right now, the white supremacist movement in the United States is surging and presents a distinct and present danger to this country and its institutions, including the Armed Forces. In February 2020, I testified before this Committee’s Subcommittee on Military Personnel1 that those who are indoctrinated into white supremacist ideology present a significant threat to good order, morale, and discipline in the military,2 national security, and the safety of our 1 Testimony of Lecia Brooks, Southern Poverty Law Center, Before the Subcommittee on Military Personnel U.S. House Armed Services Committee, “Alarming Incidents of White Supremacy in the Military—How to Stop It?” February 11, 2020. https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110495/witnesses/HHRG-116-AS02-Wstate- BrooksL-20200211.pdf. 2 Indeed, supremacist ideology is utterly inconsistent with Military Equal Opportunity, as outlined in the Department of Defense Directive on “Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity in the DoD”: “The right of all Service 1 communities. This fact was dramatically illustrated, once again, by the recent arrests of several veterans for their active involvement in the deadly January 6 insurrectionist siege at the U.S. Capitol. The vast majority of those who serve in our Armed Forces have no connection to white supremacy or extremism and uphold the best traditions of our nation’s democratic ideals. Though the number of extremists associated with the Armed Forces who engage in hate crimes and criminal extremist activity is relatively small, their capabilities and specialized weapons training make them prime targets for extremist propaganda and recruitment.3 Recent investigations have identified dozens of veterans and active-duty servicemembers who are affiliated with white supremacist activity.4 This is far from a new problem. In fact, the SPLC has been documenting white supremacist infiltration of the military and urging officials to take substantial and systematic action since 1986. It is now clear that, despite some adjustments in policies related to recruitment and conduct within the Armed Forces, white supremacist and extremist activity continues to persist in the military. Assessing the Current Threat of White Supremacist Terror In recent years, we have witnessed devastating violence carried out by individuals radicalized by white supremacist propaganda. This propaganda, found primarily online, is intended to recruit young people into an extremist worldview that portrays white people as being systematically replaced by nonwhite migrants—and people of color more broadly—and that demands urgent, radical, and violent action to “reset” America. This antidemocratic movement— composed of different groups with various extreme and hateful ideologies—puts a premium on the type of training afforded by the Armed Forces. It is thus no surprise that extremist groups and individuals encourage their followers to join a branch of the military and that they target existing servicemembers and veterans for recruitment. However, the rising tide of extremism within the members to serve, advance, and be evaluated based on only individual merit, fitness, capability, and performance in an environment free from unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender identity), or sexual orientation.” https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/102002p.pdf NUMBER 1020.02E June 8, 2015, Incorporating Change 2, Effective June 1, 2018. 3 Kristy N. Kamarck, “Military Personnel and Extremism: Law, Policy, and Considerations for Congress,” Congressional Research Services, CRS Insight IN11086, May 16, 2019, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11086. 4 Military personnel are current prohibited from “active participation in ... organizations that advocate supremacist, extremist, or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes; including those that attempt to create illegal discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, religion, ethnicity, or national origin; advocate the use of force, violence, or criminal activity; or otherwise engage in efforts to deprive individuals of their civil rights.” Active participation is defined: “Active participation includes, but is not limited to, fundraising; demonstrating or rallying; recruiting, training, organizing, or leading members; distributing material (including posting online); knowingly wearing gang colors or clothing; having tattoos or body markings associated with such gangs or organizations; or otherwise engaging in activities in furtherance of the objective of such gangs or organizations that are detrimental to good order, discipline, or mission accomplishment or are incompatible with military service.” DoDI 1325.06, “Handling Dissident and Protest Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces,” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, November 27, 2009, Incorporating Change 1, February 22, 2012 https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/132506p.pdf. 2 Armed Forces and veterans’ communities cannot be stymied without tackling the scourge of far- right extremism in broader American society. To put it another way, as Heather Williams of the RAND Corporation noted in DefenseOne: “The military has a growing extremism problem because America does.”5 Analyses of two terrorism crime databases show that “rightwing terrorists” are significantly more likely to have military experience than any other category of terrorists indicted in U.S. federal courts.” Between 1980 and 2002, 18% of far-right terrorists indicted in federal courts had military experience. The same study showed that “over 40% of rightwing terrorists with military experience assumed some position of leadership within their organization,” making them more than twice as likely to end up in leadership than someone without military training.6 A study by Pete Simi and Bryan Bubolz found that, in a sample of far- right extremists (FRTs) gathered from the American Terrorism Study database, open sources, and interviews, at least 31% had military experience—as compared to 10% of the U.S. population at large. “More specifically,” they wrote, “we found 17 percent of the FRTs with military experience were founders of their FRT organizations, 22 percent were leaders in their FRT organizations, and the remaining 43% were core members of their FRT organizations.”7 Other studies show that white supremacist organizations appear to have enjoyed a measure of success in their ambitions of reaching members of the Armed Forces. According to a 2019 poll conducted by Military Times, 36% of active-duty servicemembers who were surveyed reported seeing signs of white nationalism or racist ideology in the Armed Forces—a significant rise from the year before, when 22% reported witnessing these extremist views.8 In the same survey, more than half of servicemembers of color reported experiencing incidents of racism or racist ideology, up from 42% in 2017.9 These numbers jumped again in 2020, when a Military Times poll conducted in the midst of nationwide racial justice protests last summer found that 57% of servicemembers of color said they had witnessed these incidents in their ranks. Likewise, of all the troops who participated in the survey, 48% listed white nationalists as a major national security threat—a mere half of a percentage point below the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and other foreign terrorist organizations.10 “Peers have been very vocal