Editorial: Pentagon turns away from institutions with centuries of service – Daily Press

By his own warped logic, Pete Hegseth has been indoctrinated “with our enemy’s wicked ideologies” and is therefore unfit to serve as our nation’s secretary of defense.

Hegseth holds a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University — two of the nearly two dozen schools and nonprofit institutions he deems “woke breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination” and no longer suitable to teach senior military officers.

At Hegseth’s behest, the Pentagon no longer pays to send officers on Senior Service College fellowships to either of his alma maters or to other highly rated schools such as William & Mary, MIT, Georgetown, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Columbia and Brown.

Among the dismissed nonprofits is, oddly, the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, whose members include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and former Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper as well as well-known GOP names such as Condoleezza Rice, Elaine Chao and Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan.

In a Pentagon memo announcing the change in February, senior commanders were told, “It is imperative that our warfighter education system forges strategic senior leaders who are trained to think critically, free of bias and influence.”

Last month, Hegseth announced two universities, Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have passed his litmus test and will now be eligible for funding to teach military officers under the 10-month fellowships.

Both are fine institutions with long traditions of educating current and future military personnel in a variety of programs. But so are the schools, such as William & Mary, that have fallen out of favor with Hegseth.

According to the Pentagon memo, other schools under consideration for fellowship funding include Virginia’s Regent University, Liberty University and George Mason University, as well as Michigan’s Hillsdale College.

All four schools, as well as others under review, have reputations for being right-leaning institutions, which doesn’t mean they’re not without merit — nor does it mean they’re any more qualified to teach senior military leaders “to think critically, free of bias and influence” than William & Mary or Hegseth’s alma maters.

The Harvard Veterans Alumni Association website notes that more than 1,350 Harvard graduates have died serving this country, beginning with 20 in the American Revolution. Eighteen Harvard grads have received the Medal of Honor, more than any institution other than West Point and the Naval Academy. The university has been an active partner with the Veterans Administration in bringing veterans to campus under tuition grants. About 150 veterans of the wars in Iran and Afghanistan are currently enrolled at Harvard.

Does that sound like an institution that, in the words of the Pentagon memo, “fail[s] to sharpen our leaders’ warfighting capabilities or that undermine the very values they are sworn to defend”?

William & Mary’s, whose history — like Harvard’s — predates the United States, has more than 1,600 military-connected enrolled in classes, according to the April edition of W&M News. Its 14th chancellor was none other than George Washington, who led W&M students at the Battle of Yorktown. Today, William & Mary offers numerous programs to assist veterans with their transition to civilian life, including at its law, business and education schools.

Does that sound like an institution promulgating, in Hegseth’s words, “anti-American resentment and military disdain”?

Hegseth is indeed unfit for his current job, but it’s not because of where he went to college. It’s because, like much of the Trump administration, he leads by whim and a machismo informed by insecurity, not intellect and reason.

This defense secretary wrongly believes his own narrow world view is free of bias and influence and is shaped by critical thinking, yet feels entitled to steer military officers from institutions that have for generations broadened the horizons and understanding of our world for thousands of U.S. military leaders.

By all means, welcome Virginia Tech and UNC to the fold. But return W&M and others in their historic roles.