05/12/2025

The Pentagon’s Culture Wars Strike West Point

A Jan. 29 order led to canceled classes, book bans and more

Four days after he was sworn in as defense secretary, Pete Hegseth directed the military service academies to scrub their curriculum of ideologies President Trump had deemed “divisive,” “un-American” and “irrational.”

Hours later, department heads at West Point sent civilian and military professors emails asking for their course syllabuses.

Some professors said they assumed the school would defend its academic program. Instead, the U.S. Military Academy’s leaders initiated a schoolwide push to remove any readings that focused on race, gender or the darker moments of American history, according to interviews with more than a dozen West Point civilian and military staff. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media without the academy’s approval.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The New York Times.