- Pentagon is cutting ties with several Ivy League and other elite schools, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday.
- Hegseth accused targeted schools of "anti-American resentment" and "military disdain."
- Over the past year, Hegseth's agency has targeted "wokeness" in military education.
Pete Hegseth is a Princeton grad — but it’s unlikely the U.S. Defense secretary will be leading cheers at Tigers football games anytime soon.
Hegseth announced that the Pentagon will sever “senior service college fellowships” ties at his alma mater and several other Ivy League and elite colleges — claiming they’ve become bastions of “wokeness” who are violating “a sacred trust” between American institutions and “our warriors.”
In a video posted on his X account, Hegseth said such trust “demands we develop our finest military leaders with the highest standards” so they can fight and win the nation’s wars.
America’s senior service colleges, he added, must honor such trust to transform senior officers into strategic thinkers capable of mastering modern warfare’s complexities “and leading our joint force to victory at every echelon.”
That trust has been broken in the professional military education system, said Hegseth.
“It’s been poisoned from within by a class of so-called elite universities who’ve abused their privilege and access to this department and utterly betrayed their purpose,” he said.
“For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain.”
Such schools have replaced the “study of victory” with “the promotion of wokeness and weakness.”
Hegseth did not cite evidence of his claims in his video.
Senior service fellowship instruction focuses on advanced-level education for senior military officers and civilian leaders, often focusing on national security and strategies.
The Pentagon, Hegseth added, will no longer subsidize “the corruption of our uniform class.”
“We demand that senior service colleges work to sharpen our war fighters on genuine national security issues — not social justice activism.”
Hegseth then announced he’s ordering “the complete and immediate cancellation” of Department of War attendance at Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Brown, Yale and many more starting next academic year, 2026-2027.
His announcement comes weeks after he said the Pentagon was cutting ties with Harvard.
A ‘top-to-bottom’ review of American war colleges
In his X video, Hegseth noted he’s also holding his own agency accountable, and will soon direct a “formal top-to-bottom” review of its own internal war colleges to ensure they too are “dedicated to the singular mission” of developing lethal and effective war fighters.
He concluded with a final message to “our warriors”: “The Ivy League faculty lounges may loathe you. The so-called elite of academia may mock your patriotism and disdain your sacrifice. But never forget that we, The War Department, have your back.”
As of Friday, Columbia, Brown, MIT and Harvard were still listed as eligible institutions in a Pentagon database for its tuition assistance program, which covers the full cost of tuition for active-duty personnel, according to The Associated Press.
Harvard reportedly had 39 participants in 2023, while Columbia had nine and MIT had two.
The earlier action against Harvard aimed to block members of the military from attending graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs, according to The Associated Press. There are still questions about whether it applies to programs such as Harvard’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program.
Hegseth was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army after participating in Princeton’s ROTC program. He later earned a master’s degree from Harvard.
Hegseth’s first year: Nixing ‘wokeness’ in military classrooms
Ridding military education of “wokeness” and DEI initiatives has been one of Hegseth’s prime concerns since taking charge of the Pentagon last year.
In May, the Defense secretary ordered all of the U.S. service academies to offer admission “exclusively on merit.” An applicant’s race, ethnicity or sex was no longer to be considered.
The United States has five service academies: the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
Nixing all elements of affirmative action, wrote Hegseth in a Pentagon memo, ensures “only the most qualified candidates” are admitted, trained and commissioned to lead “the finest fighting force in history.”
“Selecting anyone but the best erodes lethality, our warfighting readiness, and undercuts the culture of excellence in our Armed Forces.”
Last year, the Pentagon also ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review their library books that address “diversity, anti-racism or gender issues.” A temporary “Academic Libraries Committee” was set up by the department to provide information on the review and decisions about the books.
That panel provided a list of search terms to use in the initial identification of the books to be pulled and reviewed. The search terms include: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual and white privilege.