The Military Academy at West Point cannot require civilian faculty members to obtain approval before using their West Point affiliation to speak to outside audiences about their areas of expertise, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The academy also cannot prevent a professor, Tim Bakken, from expressing his opinions to students in the classroom on subjects he teaches, Judge Cathy Seibel of U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., said in the ruling.
Professor Bakken, who has taught at West Point since 2000, had sued the academy, saying that its policies had violated the First Amendment. He has spoken and written frequently and at times critically about the U.S. military, including West Point, his lawsuit notes.
Judge Seibel issued a preliminary injunction blocking both the approval requirement and the restrictions on Professor Bakken’s speech.
She said that the government had offered no real justification for limiting his ability to express opinions in the classroom. She said the rule was “nonsensical if the mission is to prepare the nation’s future military officers.”
“For genuine strength and leadership to result,” Judge Seibel wrote, “cadets must be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and trained to think critically about them.”
“West Point cadets are already, by definition, smart, tough and patriotic,” the judge added. “They are not snowflakes who will somehow be harmed by learning about controversial issues or competing viewpoints. They will not somehow be weakened in their future defense of our country if their classroom discussions are robust and open.”
The judge noted in her decision that the policies at West Point followed an executive order, “Restoring America’s Fighting Force,” signed by President Trump a week after he took office. It was aimed at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs within the military and also barred the military from promoting certain “un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist and irrational theories,” the ruling noted.
Mr. Trump has targeted mostly private universities and their faculty since returning to office last year, often threatening to cut off funding, and accusing them of antisemitism and indoctrinating students with ideas that run contrary to his agenda. Many of the schools, including some of the most elite ones, have settled in order to avoid further investigations and restore funding.
At West Point, following the order from Mr. Trump, professors were asked to remove course materials that discussed race, gender or painful parts of American history, The New York Times reported in May of last year.
Professor Bakken, 68, who obtained his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, is the longest-serving law professor in the military academy’s history, his suit says. He is also the author of a 2020 book, “The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris and Failure in the U.S. Military.”
The requirement that faculty members obtain prior approval when using their West Point affiliation to speak to outside audiences lists examples like journal publications, media interviews, social media posts and podcasts, according to a copy of the policy attached to the lawsuit.
As for restrictions in classrooms, Professor Bakken said in court papers that before the directive, he routinely shared his views on topics he taught in class. He no longer does so, he says. In court papers, he cited questions he received from cadets during the fall 2025 semester seeking his opinion on whether the death penalty is effective or about the value of the movement for deinstitutionalization of mentally ill people.
“I would have provided the cadets with my opinions and views in response to their questions,” he said in court papers. He added that he refrained from doing so because of the new rules.
Judge Seibel also denied the government’s request to dismiss Professor Bakken’s lawsuit. The government had argued that a government employer was entitled to place certain restrictions on speech, as in Professor Bakken’s case, “where the agency in question is a military academy charged with training the nation’s future military officers.”
The professor was free to speak “however and to whomever he chooses,” the government wrote, “so long as he does not utilize his West Point affiliation.”
“When he seeks to invoke his status as a West Point professor,” the government said, “there is a risk that whatever message he is espousing becomes attributable to West Point or the Department of Defense.”
Professor Bakken said on Tuesday that he was grateful that he and his colleagues were “free again to search for truth, and not be subject to the censorship of the military and the government.”
“The most serious threat to free expression is a prior restraint,” he said, “and the U.S. Military Academy applied it to all of its civilian professors.”
Professor Bakken’s lawyers, Jonathan R. Goldman and Stephen Bergstein, said the lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of all civilian professors at West Point, and they will now seek a permanent injunction against the policies in question.
The military academy declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
West Point’s faculty includes 188 civilians and 495 military officers, according to a declaration filed in the case.
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly.
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