10/21/2026
On October 9, a rotating body of trustees for America’s most distinguished military academy gathered in the Haig Room, a sixth-floor suite in West Point’s grand library. The agenda was saturated with the usual soldierdom. Lieutenant General James B. Bartholomees III teed up presentations demonstrating how the academy builds “multi-dimensional, multi-domain leaders.” Cadets highlighted a recent combat-diving trip with special-operations forces in Key West and a project with Palantir on drone targeting. There was even an emotional monologue on the excellence of West Point students.
From this meeting, it would be hard for an outsider to see that West Point has been, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, invaded by weakness and wokeness, writes Jasper Craven. Over the past few years, a conservative military cadre, led by Hegseth, has claimed the 224-year-old academy has been dangerously compromised by civilians and the left.
The claims that West Point is now full of communists are shaky, writes Craven, but this has not stopped Hegseth from launching an unprecedented campaign to reconfigure military education by attempting to obliterate the small germ of a liberal-arts curriculum that exists at the academy.
In Donald Trump’s second term, the Pentagon has banned various books, student groups, and English and history courses at West Point. Hegseth has called for the end of tenure for civilian professors, many of whom have been fired or pushed out.
Read more from Stieb on Hegseth’s “war on woke” at West Point: https://nymag.visitlink.me/QcR1qs
