Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is happy a tenured West Point professor is resigning after saying he was “ashamed to be associated” with the U.S. Military Academy while the curriculum was overhauled following the election of President Trump.
In an essay for The New York Times, philosophy professor Graham Parsons — who has taught at West Point for 13 years — said Thursday he’ll step down at the end of this semester. He blamed new policies from the Trump administration that prohibited classes on subjects related to diversity, equity and inclusion, critical race theory, and gender ideology.
“I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly,” Mr. Parsons wrote.
The essay drew a rebuke from Mr. Hegseth, who has championed sweeping changes at the Pentagon to eliminate programs that he says won’t help “win the nation’s wars.”
“You will not be missed, Professor Parsons,” Mr. Hegseth posted on X.
Mr. Parson said the trouble began for him soon after Mr. Trump was sworn in for his second term in the White House. The professor accused West Point officials of pressuring him to withdraw an article he wrote for the national security blog Lawfare about the military’s obligation to remain politically neutral.
“The administrators did not find fault with the article but said they were worried that it might be provocative in the incoming administration. Reluctantly, I complied,” he wrote in the essay.
Thursday’s column wasn’t Mr. Parson’s first for the NYT. Just before the 2024 presidential election, he wrote that military leaders could be obliged to refuse orders that may not be strictly illegal. He cited using military force to disperse political protestors or patrolling urban areas, because the actions might interfere with the due process rights of people in the area.
“If the president orders the military to take actions that jeopardize its neutrality, the military is ethically justified in criticizing and even resisting that order even if it is not clearly illegal,” he wrote. “Political neutrality exists to solve a second problem as well — ensuring that the military is subordinate to legitimate democratic authority, not to, say, a tyrant.”
