On September 29, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the military departments “to immediately terminate the practice of appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions” at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, the Pentagon announced. His memo, “Refocusing the Military Service Academies on Warfighter Education,” says the academies must address “the structural mechanisms that have allowed civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality,” and that “Tenure often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs.” It orders the services to write hiring plans built around flexibility and the warfighting mission.
Civilians teach a large share of the classes. The Naval Academy has 217 tenured civilian professors and 67 more on the tenure track, The Hill reported; West Point says 27 percent of its faculty is civilian, and the Air Force Academy has said about 30 percent. The AP reported that the directive apparently would not strip tenure from professors who already have it; The Hill said that was not immediately clear. The Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies, which sit under other departments, are not covered. Advocates of tenure, which generally comes with a career-long appointment, say its job security is a crucial part of academic freedom (AP).
Hegseth signaled the move at his Senate confirmation hearings, saying he wanted officers teaching at the academies “instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities.” Since taking over the Pentagon he has scrutinized library books on race and gender, cut ties with graduate programs at Harvard and Princeton and halted instruction on diversity, equity and inclusion, CBS News reported. Eric Merriam, a former Air Force Academy professor, told the AP, “It does seem to me as though it's a retrenchment,” and, “It's a retreat from what I think was positive progress in ensuring that these elite educational academies actually have elite education as part of the program.” West Point had already required professors to get approval before speaking publicly (see After a Trump Order, West Point Made Professors Get Approval Before Speaking or Publishing. One Refused and Sued.).