Washington, Sep 30 — US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has ordered the military services to stop appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions at the country’s military service academies, arguing that tenure can lead to academic stagnation and divert the institutions from their central mission of preparing officers for war.
The directive, issued Tuesday, requires the military departments to immediately end the practice of granting tenure to civilian faculty and develop new hiring plans that give the academies greater flexibility in selecting and retaining teachers.
“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,” Hegseth said in the memorandum.
“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,” he said.
The move is part of a broader effort by the Department of War to reshape military education around what it describes as lethality, readiness and tactical dominance.
The department said Hegseth had directed the military departments to “immediately terminate the practice of appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions at the U.S. Military Service Academies”.
The secretary singled out tenure as one of the structural practices he believes has weakened the academies’ focus on their military mission.
“Tenure often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs,” Hegseth said.
“Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics,” he added.
The directive does not call for an end to civilian faculty at the academies. Instead, it changes the terms under which future civilian academic appointments are to be made.
Hegseth ordered the secretaries of the military departments to cease appointing civilian employees to tenured positions and create new hiring plans focused on institutional flexibility and the contribution of faculty to the warfighting mission.
The Department of War said the new system would allow the academies to place greater emphasis on faculty contributions to military readiness and ensure that future officers are prepared to lead service members on the modern battlefield.
The one-page memorandum, titled “Refocusing the Military Service Academies on Warfighter Education”, was addressed to senior Pentagon leadership, defence agency chiefs and Department of War field activity directors.