The U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s policy required preapproval for faculty speech.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point can’t enforce against its civilian faculty a policy requiring preapproval for their speech and writing, a judge ruled Tuesday.
In February 2025, West Point issued a policy requiring faculty, “while on duty or when using any USMA affiliation or branding,” to get department head approval for any “engagements” with external audiences concerning their own academic disciplines. This included—but wasn’t limited to—journal articles, conference presentations, media interviews, op-eds and social media posts, the academy said.
That policy appeared shortly after President Trump returned to the White House and issued an executive order banning West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy from “promoting, advancing, or otherwise inculcating … un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational theories.” The theories Trump listed were “divisive concepts,” “gender ideology,” race or sex “stereotyping” and “scapegoating,” and the idea “that America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.”
