Pete Hegseth Blocks New Civilian Faculty Tenure at Military Academies to Refocus on 'Warfighting'

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the US military academies to stop appointing civilian professors to tenured positions, arguing that the schools need to concentrate more heavily on preparing future officers for combat. The directive, signed on Tuesday, 29 September, applies to the US Military Academy at West Point, the US Naval Academy and the US Air Force Academy.

The change does not appear to strip existing civilian professors of tenure. Instead, it stops the academies from appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions and instructs the military departments to develop new hiring arrangements that give greater weight to flexibility and contributions to military education.

Hegseth's Push for a Warfighting Focus

The directive calls for an end to new tenure appointments for civilian professors and instructs the military departments to develop alternative hiring arrangements.

In his memorandum, Hegseth argued that long-term academic appointments can make institutions slower to respond to changing requirements and can encourage courses to follow professors' research interests rather than the military's operational needs.

'The primary purpose of our Military Service Academies (MSA) is to prepare the next generation of officers to lead the men and women of the greatest military on Earth,' the memo signed by Hegseth on Tuesday read.

The memo also said, '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 policy seeks to make faculty arrangements more closely connected to the academies' role in producing commissioned officers, per The Washington Post.

'Tenure often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs. Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics,' the memo also stated.

The push follows an earlier Pentagon effort to examine military education and training. In September 2025, Hegseth ordered a 60-day review covering service academies, military educational institutions and training schools, with the stated aim of ensuring programmes provided the skills and instruction needed for large-scale combat operations.

The latest directive represents another step in that campaign to reshape military education around operational preparation, per the Defence Department.

Civilian Professors Have Long Been Part of the Academies

Civilian academics have played a substantial role at the service academies for decades. Congress expanded the academies' ability to employ civilian faculty through legislation enacted in 1992, with the goal of strengthening their academic staffs. At the Naval Academy, civilians make up roughly half of the faculty, while West Point's civilian share is considerably smaller, per AP News.

Academy leaders have previously defended tenure as an important recruitment and retention tool. During a 2025 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven Gilland said tenure gave civilian professors opportunities to develop in their academic fields.

Then-Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette Davids described it as useful for attracting and retaining faculty, while Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind also discussed tenure as part of civilian professors' academic careers.

The policy has raised questions about how the academies will balance military preparation with their responsibilities as accredited colleges.

Civilian professors teach subjects including English, humanities and other academic disciplines, while proponents of civilian faculty argue that their expertise can expose cadets and midshipmen to perspectives and areas of scholarship outside the military profession.