President Donald Trump’s ongoing clash with Harvard University just got backup from the Pentagon.
Harvard, once known for academic excellence, has taken repeated hits to its reputation in recent years over accusations of extreme woke ideology, plagiarism by its former president, and rampant antisemitism following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Now it’s also losing favor with the Department of War.
Trump is already seeking a $1 billion settlement from the Ivy League school. On Friday, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth added more pressure by announcing the military will reassess its academic ties to elite universities that value ideology over effectiveness.
Hegseth made clear Harvard is not alone in the spotlight. He said the Ivy League and several other civilian universities suffer from deep institutional bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity.
“With some exceptions, the Ivy League, as a whole, has pervasive institutional bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the coddling of toxic ideologies that undercuts our mission right here in this building,” Hegseth said.
He announced that in two weeks, the Army, Navy, and Air Force will begin evaluating all graduate programs used by active-duty service members at Ivy League schools and other civilian universities.
The purpose is to determine whether these programs actually provide cost-effective and strategically useful education for future senior military leaders when compared to public universities and military-run graduate programs.
In other words: are taxpayers getting leaders… or lecture notes on feelings?
Hegseth closed his five-minute video statement with a blunt message that left little room for interpretation.
“We train warriors, not wokesters,” he said.
“Harvard, good riddance.”
For years, many elite universities have been allowed to drift into anti-American sentiment, ideological extremism, and hostility toward traditional values. Trump and Hegseth are now making it clear that national defense comes before political fashion.
Their message is simple: the military needs strength, discipline, and strategic thinking — not activist professors and ideological reeducation.
And with leadership finally drawing a line, America’s universities may soon remember what they were supposed to be about in the first place.
