Pentagon says it’s cutting ties with ‘woke’ Harvard, discontinuing military training, fellowships
The Pentagon said Friday it was cutting ties with Harvard University and ending all military training, scholarships and certification programs with the Ivy League institution.
The announcement marks the latest development in the Trump administration Long standoff with Harvard On the White House’s demands for reform at the Ivy League school.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that Harvard “no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services.”
“For too long, this department has been sending our best and brightest officers to Harvard in the hope that the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” Hegseth said. “Instead, many of our officers return looking very much like Harvard, their minds filled with globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”
In a separate post about X, Hegseth wrote: “Harvard is woke; the War Department is not.”
In the statement, it was stated that the Pentagon will end professional military education, scholarship and certificate programs at the graduate level, starting from the 2026-27 academic year. Staff currently attending classes at Harvard will be able to complete these courses.
Similar programs at other Ivy League universities will be evaluated in the coming weeks, Hegseth said.
Hegseth earned a master’s degree from Harvard but symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox News episode. A Pentagon social media account run by Hegseth’s office resurfaced the clip of Hegseth, then a Fox News commentator, returning the diploma and writing “Return to Sender” on it in pencil.
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.
In general, opportunities to attend prestigious civilian schools provide less direct benefit to a soldier’s military career than their civilian counterparts, while helping troops become more attractive employees after leaving the military.
Harvard has long been President Donald Trump’s top target in his administration’s campaign to bring the nation’s most prestigious universities to their knees. Its officials cut billions of dollars from Harvard’s federal research funding and tried to block it. foreign student registration after the campus rejected a series of government demands last April.
The White House says it is punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Semitic prejudice on campus. Harvard leaders argue they face unlawful retaliation for not embracing the administration’s ideological views. Harvard filed a pair of lawsuits against the administration. A federal judge issued orders siding with Harvard in both cases. Management objects.
Tensions had eased over the summer as Trump teased a deal he said was just days away. That never happened, and on Monday the president dug deeper and demanded $1 billion from Harvard as part of any deal to restore federal funding. This was twice what he had previously requested.
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