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By COLLIN BINKLEY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will forbid members of the army from attending Columbia, Yale, Brown and different universities beginning subsequent faculty 12 months amid a marketing campaign to lower ties with establishments that Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth known as “factories of anti-American resentment.”
Hegseth introduced the coverage in a video posted to social media on Friday, three weeks after he mentioned the army was reducing ties with Harvard College. With out citing proof, Hegseth mentioned the schools have change into “breeding grounds of poisonous indoctrination” that undermine army values.
“For many years, the Ivy League and comparable establishments have gorged themselves on a belief fund of American taxpayer {dollars}, solely to change into factories of anti-American resentment and army disdain,” he mentioned. “They’ve changed the research of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of wokeness and weak point.”
Hegseth mentioned the ban applies to Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how and “many others” with out elaborating. He known as for “full and instant cancellation of all Division of Conflict attendance,” although it was not clear how broadly it will be utilized.
A message looking for additional particulars was not instantly answered by the Pentagon.
As of Friday, Columbia, Brown, MIT and Harvard had been nonetheless listed as eligible establishments in a Pentagon database for its Tuition Help program, which covers the complete value of tuition for active-duty personnel. Harvard had 39 members in 2023, in response to the latest knowledge, whereas Columbia had 9 and MIT had two.
The sooner motion towards Harvard goals to dam members of the army from attending graduate-level skilled army schooling, fellowships and certificates packages, in response to a press release launched on the time. There are nonetheless questions on whether or not it applies to packages reminiscent of Harvard’s Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corps program.
Harvard has provided a collection {of professional} improvement packages and a small variety of diploma packages tailor-made to the Pentagon. Final 12 months, it created a brand new grasp’s diploma in public administration for active-duty army members and veterans. Hegseth earned a grasp’s diploma from Harvard however symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox Information phase.
The army provides its officers a wide range of alternatives to get graduate-level schooling, each at struggle faculties run by the army in addition to civilian establishments like Harvard.
Campuses throughout the Ivy League have been a favourite goal of President Donald Trump, who accuses them of changing into overrun by “woke” ideology. His administration has lower billions of {dollars} in analysis funding and tried a lot of different sanctions towards the schools, usually as a part of investigations into allegations that officers tolerated antisemitism on campus.
Hegseth’s announcement is a rebuke to universities that had appeared to have reached a truce with the administration in latest months. Columbia and Brown had been among the many earliest universities to signal offers with the White Home, agreeing to a spread of calls for to be able to have their federal funding restored.
Harvard is preventing again towards such calls for, alleging in lawsuits that the federal government is illegally retaliating towards the college for rebuffing its ideological views. Final summer season, Trump mentioned he was days away from reaching a take care of Harvard, however negotiations seem to have fallen aside. Earlier this month, Trump mentioned Harvard should pay $1 billion to the federal government as a part of any deal, twice what he had beforehand demanded.
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