WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will no longer appoint civilians as tenured college faculty at the United States’ military service academies, according to a memo signed by Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The memo describes the decision to stop granting tenure to civilian faculty as part of an effort to refocus the military academies on warfighting.
“To ensure our educational institutions remain firmly focused on this warfighting mission, we must address the structural mechanisms that have allowed civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality,” the memo, signed last week, said.
The tenure designation generally comes with a career-long academic appointment at a college. Advocates say the job security is a crucial component of academic freedom. Hegseth’s directive apparently would not remove the designation from faculty members who are currently tenured.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy all did not respond to questions, and officials at the Pentagon did not offer further details on the plan when reached for comment.
The percentage of faculty who are civilians varies by military academy. It is highest at the U.S. Naval Academy, where roughly half of the 600 faculty members are civilians. The academies hire civilian faculty to offer expertise in topics and disciplines that military officers don’t study as part of their careers, such as English and the humanities.
Hegseth’s decision follows broader conservative attacks on tenured faculty appointments in higher education. Those efforts to rein in tenure are often presented as bids to rein in academics with liberal views.
Civilian faculty members often have more teaching experience and credentials than their military counterparts at the service academies, said Eric Merriam, a legal studies and political science professor at the University of Central Florida and a former professor at the Air Force Academy.
The academies have long served a dual role — training the next generation of officers while providing a traditional, prestigious, four-year college experience, Merriam said. The schools offer a broad liberal arts education, in recognition that senior leadership must be critical thinkers who can understand different points of view.
Hegseth’s actions signal a shift toward a narrower focus, Merriam said.
“It does seem to me as though it’s a retrenchment,” he said. “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.”
In Hegseth’s memo, tenure was described as a factor that contributed to “academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs. Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics.”
Traditionally, tenured professors can be terminated only under extreme circumstances, such as professional misconduct or a financial emergency. Advocates say it’s especially important to maintain tenure as controversy grows over scholarly discussions about history, race, gender and sexuality.
The decision is part of a broader push from Hegseth to remake the military’s education apparatus. Earlier this year, the Pentagon severed long-standing ties with prestigious universities that had been a pipeline for military leadership, forging new relationships with Christian schools and public universities.
The Pentagon has also attempted to reorient the K-12 schools it operates for military families. It introduced a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity, part of an effort to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning.
Ma and Toropin write for the Associated Press.
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