Washington — The Defense Department is considering its most sweeping remake of military higher education, according to an unreleased draft memorandum obtained by CBS News that would abolish civilian tenure and overhaul course offerings at the military service academies and senior war colleges that educate future military officers. The memorandum, labeled "Refocusing the Military Service Academies and Senior Service College on Warfighter Education," would direct institutions like the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to eliminate the granting of tenure to civilian faculty. It would also launch a comprehensive review of the curriculum taught at all service academies and war colleges. The memorandum has not yet been approved by top Pentagon officials, and it's unclear when it could be finalized and distributed or how it would be implemented. It would apply to West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, along with institutions like the Naval War College in Rhode Island and the Army War College in Pennsylvania. More than 10,000 people are enrolled in those institutions."Tenure is a construct designed to protect academic freedom within universities. In practice, it more often leads to stagnation, complacency, and inflexibility," the memorandum states. "It contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics." Beyond civilian faculty employment, the draft proposal reaches into the classroom itself. It directs Defense Department officials to conduct a comprehensive, "line-by-line" review of every course taught at the military academies and senior service colleges, measuring each against a single standard: whether it directly advances "tactical operational or strategic warfighting." Courses determined to be non-essential or "ideologically driven" would be slated for elimination. It's not clear what criteria the Pentagon will use to determine what academic instructions are non-essential or how a course is driven by ideology.