After Trump's January 2025 executive order “Restoring America's Fighting Force,” the U.S. Military Academy at West Point adopted an “Academic Engagement Policy” requiring civilian faculty to seek approval before publishing papers or delivering public speeches, along with an informal directive that they not share personal opinions in the classroom.
Tim Bakken, the longest-serving civilian law professor in West Point's history, refused. At a March 2025 faculty meeting he told colleagues that no professor should have to seek prior authorization to write or speak, and that the policy “violates the First Amendment.” In September 2025 he filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of civilian faculty challenging the restrictions.
The courts have so far agreed with him: the speech restriction was overturned, and a federal judge blocked West Point from enforcing it. A July 26, 2026 Washington Post feature framed the case as a test of the military's tolerance for internal criticism, and noted the personal cost of dissent: after Bakken filed, many colleagues distanced themselves, several stopped speaking to him, and the three closest told him privately they supported the case but could not join it.
Requiring the faculty who train Army officers to get government permission before they publish or speak is a direct prior restraint on academic speech, and it flowed from a presidential order. Bakken argues that stifling what instructors can say makes the military more vulnerable to bad decisions, not less.