Hegseth freezes hiring of civilian tenured faculty at US military academies

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed departments on Tuesday to halt appointments of civilian staff to tenured positions at U.S. military service academies and develop hiring plans that prioritize “institutional flexibility and faculty contribution to the warfighting mission.”

“The primary purpose of our Military Service Academies (MSA) is to prepare the next generation of officers to lead the men and women of the greatest military on Earth. 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,” Hegseth said in a one-page memo titled “Refocusing the Military Service Academies on Warfighter Education.”

The Pentagon chief said in the memo that granting tenure to civilian faculty “often leads 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,” Hegseth said.

CBS News reported in July the Pentagon was weighing a move to end civilian tenure at military academies.

The U.S. has five service academies: West Point in New York, U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, Air Force Academy in Colorado, Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut and Merchant Marine Academy in New York.

The Coast Guard Academy resides under the Department of Homeland Security, while the Merchant Marine Academy is under the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration.

West Point said it has 27 percent civilian faculty. The U.S. Naval Academy has 217 tenured civilian professors and 67 civilian professors on tenure track. An Air Force Academy “Academic FAQ” page previously said the school has about 70 percent military instructors and 30 percent civilians.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether currently tenured faculty would be impacted by the order.

The memo is part of Hegseth’s push to overhaul military service academies. The Pentagon chief said last year his goal was to get “woke” civilian professors out of the institutions and replace them with military personnel.

“We need more uniformed members going back into West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy as a tour to teach with their wisdom of what they’ve learned in uniform instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities that they left and then try to push that into service academies,” the Defense secretary said during his confirmation hearing.

Earlier this year, Hegseth rolled out a new task force — led by Anthony Tata, undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness — to conduct a review of U.S. war colleges to make sure they are “effective” and focused on critical national security issues.

Some of those schools being assessed are Army War College, National Defense University, the Naval War College, Marine Corps University and the Air War College.

“We want military leaders who are critical thinkers that have studied the principles on which our founding fathers established this republic, and that are educated and prepared to win wars,” Hegseth said in March.