Pentagon says it is reducing ties with “woke” Harvard, discontinuing army coaching and fellowships

The Pentagon mentioned Friday it’s reducing ties with Harvard College, ending all army coaching, fellowships and certificates applications with the Ivy League establishment.

The announcement marks the most recent growth within the Trump administration’s extended standoff with Harvard over the White Home’s calls for for reforms. 

Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned in an announcement Friday that Harvard “now not meets the wants of the Battle Division or the army companies,” utilizing the administration’s most popular time period for the Division of Protection.

“For too lengthy, this division has despatched our greatest and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the college would higher perceive and admire our warrior class,” Hegseth mentioned. “As an alternative, too lots of our officers got here again wanting an excessive amount of like Harvard — heads stuffed with globalist and radical ideologies that don’t enhance our combating ranks.”

In a separate put up on X, Hegseth wrote, “Harvard is woke; The Battle Division isn’t.”

Beginning with the 2026-27 educational 12 months, the Pentagon will discontinue graduate-level skilled army training, fellowships and certificates applications, the assertion mentioned. Personnel at the moment attending courses at Harvard will be capable of end these programs.

Comparable applications at different Ivy League universities can be evaluated in coming weeks, Hegseth mentioned, alleging that Ivy League faculties have proven a “pervasive institutional bias.”

Harvard runs a number of applications for veterans and active-duty service members, together with a Harvard Kennedy College fellowship. It has an extended historical past of hyperlinks to the army, courting again to the Revolutionary Battle.

Hegseth earned a grasp’s diploma from Harvard however symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox Information phase. A Pentagon social media account run by Hegseth’s workplace resurfaced the clip during which Hegseth, then a Fox Information commentator, returned the diploma and wrote “Return to Sender” on it with a marker.

The army affords its officers quite a lot of alternatives to get graduate-level training at each battle schools run by the army in addition to civilian establishments like Harvard.

Broadly, whereas alternatives to attend prestigious civilian faculties supply much less direct profit to a servicemember’s army profession than their civilian counterparts, they assist make troops extra enticing staff as soon as they depart the army.

In his put up, Hegseth mentioned officers who have been despatched to review at Harvard often got here again with “heads stuffed with globalist and radical ideologies.” He additionally alleged the college had “basically failed to guard American college students and school from antisemitic violence and harassment.” 

Harvard has lengthy been President Trump’s prime goal in his administration’s marketing campaign to convey the nation’s most prestigious universities to heel. Administration officers have minimize billions of {dollars} in Harvard’s federal analysis funding and tried to dam it from enrolling overseas college students after the campus rebuffed a sequence of presidency calls for final April.

The White Home has mentioned it is punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus. Harvard leaders argue they’re dealing with unlawful retaliation for failing to undertake the administration’s ideological views, or failing to conform to unprecedented federal oversight over the college’s educational applications. Harvard sued the administration in a pair of lawsuits. A federal choose issued orders siding with Harvard in each circumstances. The administration is interesting.

Tensions had eased over the summer season as Mr. Trump teased a deal that he mentioned was simply days away. It by no means materialized, and on Monday, the president dug deeper, demanding $1 billion from Harvard as a part of any deal to revive federal funding. That is twice what he had demanded earlier than.

A number of different elite faculties have minimize offers with the Trump administration to revive their federal analysis funding. Columbia College agreed to pay the federal authorities $200 million, whereas Brown College agreed to donate $50 million to workforce growth applications.