Trump Orders ‘Immediate Dismissal’ Of Military Academy Boards

President Donald Trump hit the ground running on Monday morning, announcing early in the day that he had ordered the “immediate dismissal” of the Board of Visitors for all three major service academies: the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York; the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland; and the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Trump delivered the news directly to the public via his social media platform Truth Social, saying that he planned to help make the American military stronger by appointing all new board members who shared Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s vision for a military free of “Woke Leftist ideologues.”

The Board of Visitors functions similarly to an advisory board.

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— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 10, 2025

“Our service academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump posted. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard.”

“We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!” Trump’s statement concluded.

Trump’s announcement comes just 24 hours after a similar one from Hegseth, who said that he’d already met with leadership at the service academies and was pleased with the progress they’d made thus far in excising Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs from the academies.

“Last week, I met with the leadership of @westpoint_USMA, @navalacademy and @af_academy,” Hegseth said in his post to X. “My message was simple: stick to leadership, standards, excellence, war fighting, and readiness. These are MILITARY ACADEMIES, not civilian universities.”

“I was impressed by the changes already underway and look forward to visiting each institution. Social Justice and DEI are OUT; History, Engineering, and War Studies are IN,” he continued. “We must restore the warrior ethos to the @deptofdefense — and it starts with our future leaders.”

Hegseth has been very clear — since long before he was confirmed to his new post — that one of his top priorities would be ridding the military of DEI programs and initiatives, restoring the Warrior Ethos, and making the American military the strong and lethal fighting force that it has been in the past.