The Department of War will sever all professional military education, fellowship and certificate arrangements with Harvard University, cutting the elite institution out of the pipeline for active-duty officers beginning in the 202627 academic year.
According to Fox News, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the decision in a video posted on X, describing the break as a necessary course correction after years of ideological drift inside the Ivy League. The move escalates a broader clash between the Trump administration and Harvard, which has increasingly become a symbol of what conservatives view as entrenched left-wing dominance in higher education.
Hegseth, who holds a masters degree from Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government, made clear that his own ties to the university did not blunt his assessment of what it has become. While acknowledging that the U.S. military has had a "rich tradition" with Harvard, he argued that the school has turned into one of the "red-hot centers of Hate America activism."
In his remarks, Hegseth drew a sharp contrast between the values of the armed forces and the ideology he says now dominates Harvards campus. "Harvard is woke; The War Department is not," Hegseth stated, adding that the partnership is "long overdue" for termination.
The secretary accused Harvard faculty of harboring open hostility toward the military and of using their positions to marginalize dissenting viewpoints. "Too many faculty members openly loathe our military. They cast our armed forces in a negative light and squelch anyone who challenges their leftist political leanings, all while charging enormous tuition. It's not worth it," he said.
Hegseth further charged that the university has abandoned the traditional academic mission of robust debate and intellectual diversity. "Theyve replaced open inquiry and honest debate with rigid orthodoxy," he argued, portraying the campus as a place where ideological conformity is enforced rather than ideas tested.
The announcement lands amid an intensifying confrontation between the Trump administration and Harvard over federal funding and campus culture. President Donald Trump said Monday he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, which the administration has made a primary target in its effort to leverage federal funding to crack down on antisemitism and "woke" ideology.
That legal battle follows a major clash over research dollars that Harvard has long relied upon. Lawyers for the Trump administration have appealed a judges order requiring the restoration of $2.7 billion in frozen federal research funding to Harvard, after the university sued in April and claimed the freeze was an unconstitutional "pressure campaign" designed to control elite academic institutions.
Hegseth also broadened his critique beyond ideology to national security concerns, accusing Harvard-linked research programs of partnering with the Chinese Communist Party. He said university leadership has fostered an environment that "celebrates Hamas, allows attacks on Jews, and prioritizes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives" over core American principles.
That environment, he argued, is incompatible with the mission of a military charged with defending the nation. "Why should the War Department support an environment that's destructive to our nation and the principles that the vast majority of Americans hold dear?" Hegseth said. "The answer to that question is that we should not, and we will not."
The secretary lamented that the longstanding practice of sending promising officers to Harvard has, in his view, backfired. "For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class," he continued. "Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks."
Hegseth did not spare the rest of the Ivy League, arguing that the problem is systemic across elite campuses. He said the schools have a "pervasive institutional bias" and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the "coddling of toxic ideologies," which he believes undermines the militarys mission and the values of the country it serves.
In response, the Pentagon will now subject its academic partnerships to a broader review that favors merit and mission over prestige. He said that in the coming weeks, all departments at the Pentagon will evaluate existing graduate programs for active-duty service members at Ivy League schools and other civilian universities.
That review will focus on both cost and strategic value, with an eye toward shifting resources away from institutions perceived as hostile to American interests. "The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost effective strategic education for future senior leaders, when compared to, say, public universities and our military graduate programs," he said. "At the War Department, we will strive to maximize taxpayer value in building lethality to establish deterrence. It's that simple. That no longer includes spending millions of dollars on expensive universities that actively undercut our mission and undercut our country."
Hegseth closed his message with a blunt statement of priorities that reflects a broader conservative push to disentangle national institutions from progressive cultural power centers. "We train warriors, not wokesters. Harvard, good riddance."
Harvard University did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment, leaving unanswered how the university will address the allegations of ideological extremism, foreign entanglements and hostility to the military that now threaten not only its federal funding but also its longstanding role in shaping Americas officer corps.
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