Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth Ends Tenure for Civilian Faculty at Service Academies

On a Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum directing that no new civilian faculty will be granted tenure at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the United States Naval Academy, or the United States Air Force Academy. Existing tenured faculty will retain their appointments, but future civilian hires will receive non-tenured contracts.

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Hegseth’s tenure-policy follows a series of education-focused actions announced earlier in the year. The Pentagon has severed long-standing pipelines with several prestigious universities, favoring partnerships with Christian schools and public universities. It has also overhauled the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the school system serving roughly 66,000 children of service members worldwide, by mandating a “classical and civics” curriculum and banning titles that address race, gender, or LGBTQ+ topics.

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On September 2, Hegseth co-authored the 2022 book *Battle for the American Mind*, arguing that a classical educational movement rooted in Christianity offers children a “fighting chance to save America.” The book also promoted expanded voucher programs and the Classical Learning Test (CLT) as an alternative to the ACT and SAT for service-academy admissions.

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• The United States Naval Academy employs roughly 600 faculty members, with civilian instructors comprising about 50 % of that workforce.

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• DoDEA operates about 160 schools across a dozen countries and U.S. territories.

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• The CLT will be offered to 11th- and 12th-grade DoDEA students this year, with 100 vouchers slated for free distribution.

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A Pentagon official overseeing DoDEA described the new curriculum as an “expansion” intended to reinforce “critical thinking and communication skills.”

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Advocates of academic freedom note that tenure traditionally protects scholars who engage in controversial research on history, race, gender, and sexuality, and they caution that removing that protection could suppress scholarly debate.

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• “The classical education movement started out as a way to address how industrial education had taken us away from kids just learning how to read, write, and do math,” — Anika Prather, an assistant professor at Catholic University

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The memorandum does not specify an implementation timetable for the tenure change, and the academies have not released detailed guidance on how civilian hiring will proceed under the new policy. The Pentagon’s broader curriculum reforms for DoDEA are slated to roll out throughout the upcoming school year, with the new online “Classical Education” course expected to expand to in-person classes over the next twelve months.

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