Pentagon to cut ties with Columbia, Yale, Brown and others Hegseth accuses of ‘wokeness’
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will ban military members from attending Columbia, Yale, Brown and other universities starting next academic year. severing ties with institutions What Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calls “factories of anti-American resentment.”
Hegseth announced the policy in a video posted on social media on Friday, three weeks after the military said it was cutting ties with Israel. Harvard University. Hegseth said, without citing evidence, that universities had become “breeding grounds for toxic brainwashing” that undermined military values.
“For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, but they have become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain,” he said. “They replaced the study of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of vigilance and weakness.”
The ban applies to Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and “many other institutions,” Hegseth said. He called for “the complete and immediate cancellation of all War Department involvement,” although it was unclear how widely this would be implemented.
A message seeking more details was not immediately responded to by the Pentagon.
As of Friday, Columbia, Brown, MIT and Harvard were still listed in the Pentagon’s database as eligible institutions for the Tuition Assistance program, which covers full tuition for active-duty personnel. According to the latest data, Harvard had 39 participants in 2023, while Columbia had nine and MIT had two.
The earlier action against Harvard was aimed at preventing members of the military from participating in graduate-level professional military education, scholarships and certification programs, according to a statement released at the time. There are still questions about whether this applies to programs like Harvard’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program.
Harvard offers a number of professional development programs and a small number of undergraduate programs designed specifically for the Pentagon. Last year, a new master’s degree in public administration was created for active-duty military members and veterans. Hegseth earned a master’s degree from Harvard but symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox News episode.
The Army offers a variety of opportunities for its officers to pursue graduate-level education, both at military-run war colleges and at civilian institutions such as Harvard.
Ivy League campuses become favorite targets President Donald Trumpaccuses them of being invaded by “woke” ideology. His administration has cut billions of dollars in research funding and initiated a range of other sanctions against universities, often as part of investigations into allegations that officials turned a blind eye to antisemitism on campus.
Hegseth’s announcement is a rebuke to universities that have appeared to reach a truce with the administration in recent months. Columbia and Brown were among the first universities to sign agreements with the White House, agreeing to a series of demands to restore their federal funding.
Harvard fights such demands, claiming in lawsuits that the government is illegally retaliating against the university for rejecting its ideological views. Last summer, Trump said he was days away from reaching a deal with Harvard, but negotiations appear to have failed. Earlier this month, Trump said Harvard should pay 1 billion dollars offered the government twice as much as it had previously requested as part of any deal.
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