Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll on Wednesday ordered the Military Academy at West Point to rescind the employment offer it made to a cybersecurity expert and Army veteran who worked in the Biden administration, as Pentagon leadership continued to insert itself into staffing and curriculum decisions at U.S. military academies.
Mr. Driscoll, in a social media post, said he had ordered West Point to nullify its appointment of Jen Easterly, who was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The army’s military academy had appointed Ms. Easterly, who once worked for President George W. Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, to a prestigious position in the department of social sciences.
The social media posts announcing her appointment have since been deleted.
On Tuesday, West Point’s announcement of Ms. Easterly’s appointment drew fire from Laura Loomer, the far-right agitator who has had an influential role in national security staffing decisions in President Trump’s second term. Ms. Loomer, who this spring spurred the firings of a slew of national security officials she accused of disloyalty, tagged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday in a post accusing Ms. Easterly of working “to silence Trump supporters under Biden.”
Mr. Driscoll posted a memo to West Point on hiring guidance, saying that the academy “terminates the gratuitous service agreement with Ms. Jen Easterly.” He continued: “She will no longer serve as the Robert F. McDermott Distinguished Chair in the department of social sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.”
Mr. Driscoll also ordered that West Point conduct a “top-down review” of its hiring practices.
The rescinding of Ms. Easterly’s appointment is the latest example of the Pentagon battling perceived political enemies. Earlier this month, Mr. Hegseth refused to promote a senior Army officer who had led troops over five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq because Mr. Hegseth maintained that the officer, Lt. Gen. Douglas A Sims II, was too close to Gen. Mark A. Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom Mr. Trump despises.
In May, Graham Parsons, a tenured professor at West Point, accused the military academy of allowing the Trump administration to dictate what it taught cadets.
“Once a school that strove to give cadets the broad-based, critical-minded, nonpartisan education they need for careers as Army officers, it was suddenly eliminating courses, modifying syllabuses and censoring arguments to comport with the ideological tastes of the Trump administration,” Mr. Parsons said in a guest essay in The New York Times.
The military academies have also removed books related to the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion from libraries, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle programs that promote diversity.
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent for The Times. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent.
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