Hegseth Halts Tenure for Civilian Faculty at US Military Academies

The Defense Department will stop appointing civilians to tenured faculty positions at the United States' military service academies, under a memo signed Tuesday by Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The directive frames the change as part of an effort to keep the academies centred on their warfighting mission. Tenure, the memo argues, has contributed to "academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs," and has allowed curriculum to drift toward the research priorities of tenured academics rather than the education of warfighters.

Tenure generally provides a career-long academic appointment. Supporters view that job security as essential to academic freedom, since tenured professors can typically be dismissed only in extreme cases such as professional misconduct or a financial emergency. The memo would not strip the designation from faculty who already hold tenure.

The share of civilian instructors varies across the academies. It is highest at the United States Naval Academy, where about half of roughly 600 faculty members are civilians. Civilian faculty are hired to bring expertise in subjects that military officers do not study during their careers, including English and the humanities.

The three service academies — West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy — did not immediately respond to questions, and the Pentagon offered no further details on the plan.

The decision follows wider conservative efforts to curb tenured appointments in higher education, often presented as a way to check academics with liberal views. It is also part of a broader push by Hegseth to reshape the military's education apparatus. Earlier this year, the Pentagon cut longstanding ties with prestigious universities that had served as a pipeline for military leadership, building new relationships with Christian schools and public universities. It has similarly sought to reorient the K-12 schools it runs for military families, introducing a course centred on Western civilization and Christianity as part of an effort to steer education toward patriotic values and classical learning.