If President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth are committed to restoring America’s military into the fighting force our country deserves, they should make purging West Point of its corrupt high officials a top priority.

They’ve already made a terrific start. Since the 1960s, West Point has maintained shameful race-based admissions targets—rewarding cadets according to the color of their skin, not merit.

Hegseth just abolished that relic of Affirmative Action.

In another blow to the woke Left, he also repealed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives across all services, including offices that “promote radical ideologies related to systemic racism and gender fluidity.” That’s part of President Trump’s broader order prohibiting DEI discrimination within the Armed Forces on the basis of sex, race, color, or creed.

Both Trump and Hegseth agree that DEI, Critical Race Theory, and other divisive ideologies undermine our military’s warrior ethos, lethality, and force readiness. They’re absolutely correct.

But as a proud West Point graduate sickened by the Army’s avoidable decline, I ask: Who put those disruptive policies in place?

Superintendent LTG Steven Gilland and Dean of the Academic Board BG Shane Reeves must be held accountable for pushing DEI on a generation of cadets—and removed from their positions immediately.

Each man was appointed by far-left President Joe Biden, has demonstrated unthinkably poor judgment, and bears ultimate responsibility for embracing toxic policies.

Gilland boasted of West Point’s “race-based composition goals” and commitment to “build a diverse and inclusive Corps” before Congress. Gilland calls diversity initiatives “operational imperatives” and says racial quotas create “a stronger and more adaptable force.”

Under Gilland, West Point hosted its biggest-ever DEI conference with the theme: “Shaping Tomorrow’s Defense: The Intersection of Diversity Innovation, and National Defense.” Last March, he replaced the academy’s motto—”Duty, honor, country”—with the bland “Army Values,” with support from Biden Army Secretary and DEI supporter Christine Wormuth.

Recall that Wormuth transformed the Army into a petri dish for the Democratic Party’s radical social agenda, declaring February a month for celebrating DEI as “key to the Army’s success.”

These are the words and actions of an activist, not an officer merely following Biden’s orders. Yet the new administration has given Gilland the task of dismantling the same race-obsessed project he architected. Are we foolish enough to trust him?

The rot extends throughout West Point’s curricula and faculty under BG Shane Reeves, Dean of the Academic Board since Biden appointed him in 2021. Government contracts signed under Reeves’ tenure reveal West Point’s adoption of “a robustly diversified Corps of Cadets” and “equity goals” as “the future of the Academy and the U.S. Army officer corps.”

Unsurprisingly, Reeves has been described as the “custodian” of the academy’s transformation into a bastion of wokethink, introducing race-centric materials, Critical Race Theory, and coursework on “whiteness.”

In 2023, he gave three Dean’s Awards for DEI Excellence to professors who pushed far-left politics in the classroom. One recipient, Professor Ericka Rovira, was praised for “spearhead[ing] innovative approaches to Design Equity for Women, as well as Gender and Racial Equity Design.”

We expect this sort of divisive indoctrination at Harvard and Berkeley, not the institution responsibility for forging the next generation of warriors. With China, Russia, and Iran beating the war drums, cleaning up Biden’s mess cannot wait a minute longer.

Our soldiers, sailors, and other servicemen do what civilians need but can’t do themselves: Win wars. That’s the military’s sole purpose. It’s the dividing line between the true warriors who go down-range and everyone else. By blurring that line, we risk America’s chances of winning the next war.

West Point’s leadership’s top responsibility is preparing future officers for combat. That’s been the academy’s mission since 1802. As a young lieutenant, I knew my job was to lead men into battle and bring them home victorious—or die trying. I learned that lesson from my years as a West Point cadet. I bear it proudly.

I’ll never forget the best advice from my father-in-law, a Purple Heart recipient who served in the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam: “No matter what the enlisted guys may say about you, believe me, when the bullets start flying they’re all going to turn to you and say, ‘What do we do now, sir?'”

Yet West Point’s current command have spent years destroying unit cohesion, jeopardizing that mission. Their emphasis on leftist politics has dissuaded patriotic young men from seeking a career in the Armed Forces. Not only is their behavior shameful and immoral, it’s a total dereliction of duty—and Gilland and Reeves must be held accountable for their failure and lack of judgment.

America is less secure because of these and other woke officers; they must never be allowed back into positions of authority again.

Trump Has More Work to Do Abolishing DEI at the Naval Academy

Annapolis leadership is spending too much time chasing “diversity” quotas and too little preparing for the next major war.

Did Vice-Admiral Yvette Davids, superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, lie under oath to Congress about using race-based admissions?

Under President Trump and Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth, the Defense Department has made terrific strides toward cleaning up the woke leadership at America’s five service academies. That includes a January 27, 2025 executive order banning the academies from using race-based initiatives.

Admiral Davids deserves to be on the Trump-Hegseth hit list for her track record of pushing racial policies on America’s midshipmen—something she’s since tried to cover up.

On February 14, Davids revised the Naval Academy’s internal guidance to bar admissions officers from using race, ethnicity, or sex as “a factor for admission at any point during the admissions process, including qualification and acceptance.” In other words, ending Affirmative Action.

One month later at a March 26 congressional hearing, Davids testified that “at no time are race, sex, or ethnicity considered in the admissions process” for students applying to Annapolis. She said it twice more, in fact. “We have an incredible system tried and true. No race, sex, or ethnicity goals associated with them,” she told Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC). Then again: “No race, sex, or ethnicity whatsoever governed in the acceptance of who we actually take in.”

If that’s true, then why did Davids feel the need to abolish Affirmative Action admission at Annapolis shortly after Trump took office, then act as if it wasn’t official policy under her command?

In other words, the same superintendent responsible for upholding race-based policies is now boasting about ending them. It’s a smokescreen to protect one of the Navy’s most woke senior officers, and the Trump administration shouldn’t buy it.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Affirmative Action is unconstitutional for universities in 2023, a ruling that unfortunately did not extend to military academies. Biden appointed Davids superintendent in January 2024, where she protected Affirmative Action in admissions for another year with no misgivings.

Davids was trumpeted by leftist groups and the Biden Defense Department as the first female and Hispanic superintendent in the academy’s history. Under Biden, civilian professors required midshipmen to state their preferred pronouns, a policy overturned not by not Annapolis but by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Naval Academy even employed a Brigade Dignity and Respect Executive Officer to administer its Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

That’s part of Biden’s 2021 “Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan,” which continued under Davids’ authority—and would undoubtedly remain in effect today had Kamala Harris won the presidency in November 2024. Captain James Bates, Annapolis’ deputy superintendent and Davids’ chief of staff, was one of the officers who endorsed the plan.

In the last days of the Biden administration—and just three months prior to Davids’ congressional testimony swearing the academy doesn’t use race in admissions—the U.S. Naval Academy won a major lawsuit upholding its use of race as a criterion for admitting new midshipmen. The Baltimore-based judge who ruled in the academy’s favor was explicit about this:

“At trial, the Court heard testimony that no candidate is admitted based solely on his or her race or ethnicity . . . . Nevertheless, the Naval Academy admits that there are certain points in the admissions process where the Naval Academy may consider race or ethnicity as one of many nondeterminative factors.”

There are four instances where the Naval Academy uses when considering race, the court further explained:

“1) When offering letters of assurance; (2) when deciding between two candidates with very close WPMs for nominations using the “competitive” method, service-connected nominations, and in some circumstances the “principal competitive alternate” method; (3) when extending Superintendent nominations; and (4) when extending offers to additional appointees.”

The superintendent of Annapolis, like the heads of all our service academies, has one job: Preparing the next generation of officers for combat leadership. Vice-Admiral Davids failed that crucial task when by helping the radical Left transform Annapolis into a haven for woke ideology.

Davids demonstrated that failure of judgment by inviting a far-left conspiracy theorist and MSNBC commentator, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, to speak on “what happens to militaries under authoritarian rule” just weeks before the 2024 election—comparing then-candidate Trump to Adolf Hitler and other dictators. Davids only postponed—not cancelled—the event after 16 Members of Congress raised serious concerns.

Experts believe Davids’ behavior may even have violated the Hatch Act, the law preventing federal employees from engaging in political activities while on-duty.

Good officers take responsibility for their failures while in command. It’s time to remove Vice-Admiral Davids from hers—and get the U.S. Naval Academy back on track.

De-Woking the Air Force Academy Must Be a Major Focus for the Trump Administration

Under Joe Biden, the academy suffered decline and redirection into pushing woke politics instead of preparing the next generation of warfighters.

Credit the U.S. Air Force Academy for making great strides towards undoing the damage inflicted by four years of Democrat rule under Joe Biden. But there’s plenty more work to be done before it’s truly back on track.

Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind has purged classes teaching Critical Race Theory and DEI per President Trump’s order, removing one of the worst obstacles toward creating a unified fighting force. “We’re delving in hard on teaching our future leaders how to think and not what to think,” he announced.

But a December 2024 lawsuit by Students for Fair Admissions points out that the academy continued to use race as a criterion for admitting cadets under Bauernfeind’s leadership—a policy that only changed in April when Air Force command issued a memorandum eliminating all consideration of sex, race, or ethnicity.

In other words, the Air Force Academy leadership only ceased its divisive Affirmative Action policies because of a Trump administration directive—and that ought to concern a nation threatened by a belligerent China.

America’s five service academies are charged with preparing the next generation of officers for the challenges of combat and command. There is no place for political indoctrination, particularly when it comes at the cost of re-warriorizing America’s military culture. Instead, the Air Force Academy spent much of the past four years focused promoting woke politics.

Brigadier General Gavin Marks is the Commandant of Cadets. Not only did he push DEI training at the academy, he has also been photographed giving the black power salute multiple times while in uniform. Additionally, he changed the honor code to remove sanctions for 1st and 2nd year cadets who failed to report honor violations.

In February 2024, the academy featured a far-left activist, Bryan Stevenson, as the keynote speaker for its National Character and Leadership Development Symposium. Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a pro-Black Lives Matter group that lobbies against the death penalty for murderers and mandatory-minimum sentencing for drug offenses. The group is heavily funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and other far-left donors.

Stevenson’s address on the importance of “identity” blasted cadets to do what is “uncomfortable and inconvenient” in the name of social justice. He was later hailed by academy Director of Staff Gail Colvin, who echoed him: “Mr. Stevenson leads with action standing for what’s right, even if it is uncomfortable or inconvenient.”

Colvin herself has advocated for “diversity” in admissions since at least 2007, when she launched a “youth diversity outreach program.” In 2020, Colvin used an annual Board of Visitors meeting to hail the academy’s Racial Review Committee following the George Floyd “Summer of Love” race riots in earlier that year.

“She [Colvin] said the Academy has initiated several programs to further study the issue, including listening sessions among minority cadets and a survey of the Cadet Wing related to their perceptions of diversity and inclusion. Committee members have also reviewed ‘artifacts’ at the Academy to increase diversity in the images that are displayed throughout the institution.”

The Air Force Academy’s glut of civilian professors—there are nearly 190 civilian staff on-campus—have further contributed to the woke penetration into curricula. Professor Cassandra Benson reportedly chided her students as “White Boy 1, 2, 3,” saying “All you white boys look alike.”

Another female instructor reportedly asked the white male students in her class to state examples of their “white privilege” to fellow cadets.

Associate Professor Lynne Chandler Garcia championed teaching cadets Critical Race Theory in a Washington Post op-ed. “Racism was ingrained in the system from the beginning,” Garcia argued of the Air Force, U.S. Armed Forces, and America as a whole.

Garcia even defended the shameful behavior of Mark Milley, the discredited ex-general who held secret calls with Communist China pledging to warn the hostile country “if the U.S. ever planned to attack.” Milley’s own defense of Critical Race Theory hinged on his close reading of Karl Marx and confessed desire to “understand white rage.”

Our military is not a petri dish for the Left’s hateful and twisted social experiments. Nor is it the domain of Democrat-appointed commissars to berate our troops into political correctness. As President Trump and Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth work to de-woke these critical institutions, they must do so with the larger goal of transforming military culture into one which rewards real warriors—not social justice warriors.

The Coast Guard Academy Went From “Always Ready” to “Always Woke”

We must instruct officers in how to protect America’s waters, not social justice ideology.

New London, Connecticut’s U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) is one of five federal service academies. It prepares cadets to become commissioned Coast Guard officers, and it falls under the oversight of the Homeland Security Department. The Coast Guard is responsible protecting America’s coastlines, but it’s been penetrated with woke indoctrination that’s weakened the force.

The USCGA leadership team is headed up by Superintendent Rear Admiral Michael J. Johnston who took over under the Biden administration in May 2023. He assumed command during a time the academy was caught up in a decades-long sexual assault cover-up called Operation Fouled Anchor. A group of 13 former cadets brough a lawsuit against the Academy for sexual abuse claims dating from the 1980s through 2017 that were not addressed. It was also discovered the Academy and Coast Guard leadership reportedly tried to hide results of an investigation into mishandled sexual assault complaints which sparked bipartisan outrage from Congress.

While Johnston’s primary focus should have been to address the concerns around sexual assaults at the Academy, he prioritized implementing woke initiatives. In January 2024 he signed the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan 2024–2026, a massive DEI plan to overhaul the academy’s culture to make it politically correct. Not once does the document discuss how it would make America safer—because the emphasis was on creating a culture of divisiveness.

In a message to the entire Academy, Johnston signed the plan that emphasized, “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) is everyone’s business and a community effort.” The plan also stressed the importance of affirmative action agendas to recruit diverse “cadets, faculty, and staff.”

The DEI action plan also advocated for a dashboard, disaggregated by race and gender, to measure future DEI efforts and accomplishments. It required “cultural competence” lessons be conducted in each athletic department twice a year. Leadership also advocated for creating a “diversity, equity, and inclusion leadership” minor.

The Coast Guard Academy also had affinity groups such as Diversity Peer Educators who served as “ears” in the corps to be inform to the DEI department of concerns. Soviet-esque snitches were embedded within this federal service academy.

Thankfully, President Trump eliminated these programs and policies after taking office. Yet Superintendent Johnston will remain in control of the academy until September 2025, leaving him in charge of de-woking the academy he helped penetrate with far-left policies.

This is unacceptable. America cannot afford officers who’ve demonstrated such an outrageous failure of judgment to remain in command of the next generation of officers. Coast Guard cadets deserve better leadership to get the academy re-focused on safeguarding the homeland instead of woke politics.