No New Tenured Civilian Jobs

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed military academies to “cease appointing civilian employees to tenured positions,” according to a memo released Tuesday.

Hegseth criticized tenure broadly in the short memo and argued without providing evidence that civilian tenure at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy has allowed “civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality.”

CBS News reported in July that the Defense Department was considering a broader plan to reshape military education. That effort included abolishing civilian tenure altogether and reviewing the curriculum to see whether it supported “tactical, operational, and strategic combat leadership.” 

Tuesday’s memo only addressed civilian tenure and doesn’t appear to affect already-tenured faculty at the academies. Hegseth did direct the academies to “develop hiring plans that prioritize institutional flexibility and faculty contribution to the warfighting mission.”

The Trump administration has already spurred a number of changes to the service academies, including banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs and cutting some courses or majors. West Point had sought to also restrict what civilian faculty say publicly, but a federal judge struck down that policy.