Photo: U.S. Secretary of Defense (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons (source)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military departments on Tuesday to end new tenured appointments for civilian teachers at the U.S. military service academies and to write hiring plans that put "institutional flexibility and faculty contribution to the warfighting mission" first, according to a Department of War release and The Hill.
The department said Hegseth told the services to "immediately terminate the practice of appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions" at those schools. The Hill said the instruction is a one-page memo titled "Refocusing the Military Service Academies on Warfighter Education."
Quoted by The Hill, Hegseth wrote that the academies exist to ready officers who will lead U.S. forces and that civilian campus norms had diluted a focus on lethality. Tenure for civilian instructors, he wrote, "often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs," and pulls course design toward "the research priorities of the tenured academics."
Faculty mix at the schools
Five federal service academies operate in the United States. West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy sit under the Defense Department. The Coast Guard Academy reports to Homeland Security, and the Merchant Marine Academy reports to the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration, The Hill reported.
West Point put its civilian faculty share at 27%, according to The Hill. The Naval Academy lists 217 civilians who already hold tenure and 67 more on the tenure track. An Air Force Academy admissions FAQ has said roughly seven in ten instructors are in uniform and about three in ten are civilians.
Whether people who already hold tenure lose that status was not clear from Tuesday's materials, The Hill reported. The same outlet noted that CBS News reported in July that the Pentagon was studying an end to civilian tenure at the academies.
Related education moves
The memo aligns with Hegseth's earlier comments on academy staffing. The Hill recalled that at his confirmation hearing he argued for sending more uniformed officers back to West Point, the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy as teaching tours instead of filling those roles mainly with civilians from outside universities.
Earlier this year he stood up a war-college review led by personnel undersecretary Anthony Tata, covering schools such as the Army War College, National Defense University, the Naval War College, Marine Corps University and the Air War College, The Hill reported. In March he said he wanted leaders who study founding principles and are "prepared to win wars."
What's next
The military departments still have to produce the hiring plans the memo requires. The War Department release did not publish a deadline or say whether existing tenure agreements would change. The Hill noted that the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies are outside the Defense Department and were not described as covered by Tuesday's order.
Sources
- U.S. Department of War: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Signs Directive Halting Tenured Civilian Positions at U.S. Military Service Academies (2026-09-29)
- The Hill: Hegseth freezes hiring of civilian tenured faculty at US military academies (2026-09-29)
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