Pentagon Purge of References to Women, Minorities in Docs Delays Air Force Enlisted Promotions
The testing cycle, which was scheduled to begin Saturday and go through April 15, will be pushed back to March 3 and will continue through May 1, the Air Force said in a statement to Military.com. The delay comes after orders by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to eliminate all efforts throughout the military promoting diverse groups such as women, troops with minority backgrounds, and gay and lesbian service members.
"This delay is to ensure we take appropriate action to evaluate testing materials, remove all [diversity, equity and inclusion-related] content in the AF Handbook and [Career Development Course] study guides, and remain consistent with the orders of our commander in chief and defense secretary," Capt. Kevyn Lee-Anne Kaler, an Air Force spokesperson, said in the statement.
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Air Force Handbook 1, a more than 600-page document that enlisted airmen use to study for the Weighted Airman Promotion System and the Promotion Fitness Examination, was removed from the service's website in late January, Military.com reported last week.
Military.com also reviewed the handbook and found multiple mentions of the Air Force's history and praise of diverse groups of people serving in the ranks, which would likely be the target of removal under Trump's executive orders.
One section titled "Leveraging Diversity" says the Air Force believes "diversity is a military necessity." In another section titled "Respecting Individuality," the service praises the "richness and benefits of diversity," adding "we must increase awareness of individuality and expel stereotypes."
The document also praised the successes of female aviators and the Black Tuskegee Airmen, saying they "dispelled myths, opened eyes, rewrote history, and prepared the USAF for being the first of the U.S. armed services to integrate racially."
The service told Military.com that a new Air Force handbook and study guides with corrected material are expected to be published by Feb. 18, giving airmen only a little more than two weeks to prepare for the beginning of the testing cycle at the start of March.
Delays in studying for promotion testing mean airmen must wait longer to prepare and take an exam to earn new ranks that could significantly increase their paychecks and advance their careers in the service.
Military.com's 2025 paycharts show that a promotion to E-6, technical sergeant, could increase an airman's earnings anywhere from nearly $300 to $800 a month just in active-duty pay.
Even with the new study materials, the promotion exam will still have diversity-related questions, according to the service, which claimed that writing a new test would cause a four-month delay and affect upward of 6,000 promotions. The Trump administration and Pentagon use the term "diversity, equity and inclusion," or DEI, to describe the programs and materials they are purging.
"Until questions can be removed, testers will still see DEI questions and are expected to answer all questions to the best of their ability," Kaler said. "However, any DEI questions will not be scored."
The delays in releasing the study guides as well as the test itself are the latest impact to the rank and file under the Trump and Hegseth push to remove initiatives that have supported and celebrated women, people with minority backgrounds, and gay and lesbian service members in the past. Trump has issued orders to ban transgender troops from serving, and the services are already beginning to carry out that ban.
Hegseth has openly told troops that he does not support DEI initiatives, saying at a Pentagon town hall recently that "the single dumbest phrase in military history is 'our diversity is our strength.'"
Most recently, the Department of the Air Force removed diversity goals for officer applicants, gutted groups that worked to help improve policy for the rank and file, and issued a memo stopping cultural celebration months honoring the history of Black people and women.
Related: Air Force Nixes Officer Applicant Diversity Goals as Directed by Trump's Executive Orders
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