Naval Academy, other military colleges won’t give tenure to civilian faculty, Hegseth says

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed a memo directing that the U.S. Department of Defense no longer appoint civilians as tenured faculty at the nation’s military academies, marking the most sweeping change the government has implemented to the U.S. Naval Academy since President Donald Trump returned to office.

The memorandum, which Hegseth signed on Tuesday, would direct military colleges to eliminate granting tenure to civilian faculty.

The decision, which was reported Tuesday evening by the Associated Press, reflects an effort to refocus the service academies on warfighting, the memo states.

“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,” the memo said.

The tenure designation generally comes with a career-long academic appointment at a college. Advocates say the job security is a crucial component of academic freedom. Hegseth’s directive apparently would not remove the designation from faculty members who are currently tenured.

The Naval Academy, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy all did not immediately respond to questions from the AP, and officials at the Pentagon did not offer further details on the plan when reached for comment.

The percentage of faculty who are civilians varies by military academy. It is highest at the United States Naval Academy, where roughly half of the 600 faculty members are civilians. The academies hire civilian faculty to offer expertise in topics and disciplines that military officers don’t study as part of their careers, such as English and the humanities.

U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, who serves on the academy’s Board of Visitors, said in a statement that offering tenure to civilians allows the military institution to lead the nation in STEM education, research and innovation by recruiting the “best and brightest,” she said.

“Any attempt by this Administration to insert culture wars into curriculum or undermine the tools that our academies need to succeed only serves to undermine our military readiness and national security,” the Democrat said prior to the news.

Tenure, which has been a practice at most higher education institutions since the early 20th century, is a policy in which certain faculty members can only be fired in extreme circumstances. The academy’s provost, Samara Firebaugh, is herself a civilian member of the faculty.

There isn’t precedent for mass revoking tenure for all employees at an institution, said Deepa Das Acevedo, a legal anthropologist at Emory University who has written a book on the practice, prior to Tuesday’s AP report.

“If you suddenly tell somebody who had tenure that they no longer have it and instead they’re employed on an at-will basis, they have a lawsuit,” she said. “It’s a breach of contract.”

The Naval Academy has undergone several changes in the year and a half since Trump returned to the Oval Office. This summer, the academy declined to formally celebrate the 50th anniversary of co-education. It also ended affirmative action, briefly pulled nearly 400 books on race and gender from the campus library and purged half of its board. Faculty were also told last year to avoid teaching about “divisive concepts” such as systemic racism and sexism.

Last year, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, then-Superintendent Yvette Davids described tenure as a “wonderful recruiting tool” that “attracts the best and the brightest” to the Naval Academy.

Soon after her testimony, Davids, the first female superintendent at the academy, was reassigned and removed as leader at the Naval Academy. She was replaced by Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, the first Marine to lead the academy.

Tenure has long been under attack nationwide, said Das Acevedo, the legal anthropologist.

Some states, like Republican-controlled Oklahoma, have already eliminated the practice. Others, like Texas and Kentucky, have weakened tenure protections. Even in Maryland, tenure and tenure-track positions don’t guarantee employment anymore — in 2024, Frostburg State University retrenched some tenured professors, and this year, leaders at Bowie State University announced that they were considering laying off tenured employees as well.

“I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m really not, because tenure is under attack, whether by legislators or by university administrators, at all kinds of institutions,” Das Acevedo said. “I am not surprised that civilian tenure is on the chopping block.”

Associated Press reporters Annie Ma and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this article.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.