Vincent Vu helped found the Vietnamese-American Cadet Association at the United States Military Academy at West Point while he was a cadet, in 2015. West Point’s culture could be difficult for someone like him, who did not come from a military background, he recalled this week.
And the academy’s affinity groups were far from discriminatory, he said. Rather, they helped people like him assimilate into the ranks of West Point cadets and the Army, and made him a better officer.
“West Point was probably the first place where I had a supportive environment for my identity and who I am,” said Mr. Vu, a former air defense artillery officer and now a second-year law student at Wake Forest University.
Now affinity groups having to do with race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation at West Point are under assault by an executive order signed by President Trump on his first day in office.
The order called for an end to diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government and in federally funded projects, as Mr. Trump promised to forge a “colorblind and merit-based” society. His administration has moved aggressively against people who are perceived as promoters of such policies.
In an attempt to comply, the academy said on Tuesday that it was disbanding 12 affinity groups immediately, including the one serving Vietnamese American cadets, and reviewing others.
The move met with a tide of criticism, and on Thursday, the academy suggested it might try to reinstate at least some of the clubs, if not all of them.
Military historians have noted that the military has often been ahead of the rest of society in pushing for racial equality, and that removing the tools for what is now called D.E.I. threatens that progress.
“You’re going to have a much more effective military when the demographics of the military represent the demographics of society,” Diane M. Ryan, a retired Army colonel, now an associate dean at Tufts University, said. Dr. Ryan taught psychology at West Point and was the officer in charge of the Corbin Forum, a club to promote female leadership, for many years.
The federal government has argued that same point in recent years, to fend off legal challenges to the academy’s consideration of race in admissions. The government said the system was necessary for recruitment and to build a diverse officer corps that reflects the troops they command.
The conservative majority in the Supreme Court found that argument so compelling that it carved out an exception for the military academies in its 2023 decision striking down affirmative action admissions at colleges across the country. The decision said the academies might have “potentially distinct interests” in considering the race of their applicants, and it left that question to be decided by future litigation.
But the landscape appears to have shifted quickly under the new administration.
Within 24 hours of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Adm. Linda L. Fagan, the first female officer to lead a branch of the armed forces, was fired. On the list of reasons the administration gave for her termination was a claim that she had an “excessive focus” on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Mr. Trump ordered the termination of all government D.E.I. offices in a January executive order, rolling back policies carried out by the Biden administration to prevent discrimination and promote diversity and equity within the government. Days after the order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a memo, called D.E.I. policies “incompatible” with Department of Defense values.
Mr. Hegseth directed the creation of a task force dedicated to eradicating the department’s D.E.I. offices “and any vestiges of such offices that subvert meritocracy, perpetuate unconstitutional discrimination and promote radical ideologies related to systemic racism and gender fluidity.”
Mr. Hegseth in January also declared identity months — such as Black History Month and Women’s History Month — “dead” at the Defense Department. He prohibited the use of official resources for cultural awareness months.
It was unclear this week if other military academies had disbanded affinity groups. After news got out about West Point’s move to close the groups down, the academy scrambled to do damage control.
The West Point deputy commandant who signed the order, Chad Foster, wrote in social media posts that the academy was working on changing the charters of the clubs or placing them within academic departments so they could continue operating.
“Of course, I’ve enjoyed being called a Nazi and the death threats during this typical internet feeding frenzy,” he wrote, adding, “Rest assured that we are establishing a process for deliberate review and possible re-establishment of these organizations.”
The dozen clubs were singled out because they were directly affiliated with the office of diversity, equity and inclusion, before it was shut down last year, he said.
Many of the clubs hosted luncheons, lecture series and off-campus trips. Though the clubs were focused on different groups, participation was open to every cadet, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or sexuality. Men often made up about 20 percent of the audience for Corbin Forum events, Dr. Ryan said.
Colonel Foster’s memo, dated Feb. 4, said the clubs were “hereby disbanded,” and were not authorized to continue even informal activities using government time, resources or facilities.
Background information provided by West Point’s communications office said that in keeping with Department of Defense guidance, the Department of the Army would not use official resources for cultural observances or awareness events. It said that cadets could still participate in such events in an unofficial capacity outside of duty hours.
The official list of 12 banned clubs included the Asian-Pacific Forum Club, the Contemporary Cultural Affairs Seminar Club, the Latin Cultural Club and the National Society of Black Engineers Club.
The academy said that more than 100 clubs remained available to its cadets, and that religious programs or activities were not affected.
Alex Morey, vice president of campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech group, said her group was monitoring orders like the one at West Point to see if they violated students’ First Amendment right to express personal views.
Molly Shannon, a 2016 West Point graduate, said she had found mentors through the West Point chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. Ms. Shannon said she was devastated when she saw it was on the list to be cut, “because I know how important that community was to me.”
The Corbin Forum was also shuttered. The group has historic resonance for female cadets, because it was created with the first class of women to be appointed to West Point, in 1976. Dr. Ryan was the officer in charge of the group from 2008 to 2017.
“The way this has been politicized is, ‘We can’t do these things because it’s divisive,’” Dr. Ryan said. “And I argue that it is actually the opposite of divisive. We are not calling people out. We are calling people in.”
Dr. Ryan said she had entered the military through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps because she did not know that women could go to West Point at that time, in the early 1980s. “Hence, representation matters,” she said.
As for West Point officials, they were taking a somewhat apologetic stance. Colonel Foster said they were “working hard to get things properly aligned” so cadets would have professional and personal opportunities.
“No one enjoys telling young people bad news, trust me,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
The post The Military Led Diversity Efforts. West Point’s Club Ban Is a Shift. appeared first on New York Times.
