Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth leaves an oath of enlistment ceremony, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, held on the bottom of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Wolf/AP
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Kevin Wolf/AP
The Pentagon mentioned Friday it’s reducing ties with Harvard College, ending all navy coaching, fellowships and certificates applications with the Ivy League establishment.
The announcement marks the most recent improvement within the Trump administration’s extended standoff with Harvard over the White Home’s calls for for reforms on the Ivy League college.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned in a press release Friday that Harvard “not meets the wants of the Struggle Division or the navy providers.”
“For too lengthy, this division has despatched our greatest and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the college would higher perceive and admire our warrior class,” Hegseth mentioned. “As a substitute, too a lot of our officers got here again wanting an excessive amount of like Harvard — heads filled with globalist and radical ideologies that don’t enhance our combating ranks.”
In a separate publish on X, Hegseth wrote, “Harvard is woke; The Struggle Division is just not.”
Beginning with the 2026-27 educational 12 months, the Pentagon will discontinue graduate-level skilled navy training, fellowships and certificates applications, the assertion mentioned. Personnel at the moment attending courses at Harvard will be capable to end these programs.
Related applications at different Ivy League universities might be evaluated in coming weeks, Hegseth mentioned.
Hegseth earned a grasp’s diploma from Harvard however symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox Information phase. A Pentagon social media account run by Hegseth’s workplace resurfaced the clip during which Hegseth, then a Fox Information commentator, returned the diploma and wrote “Return to Sender” on it with a marker.
The navy presents its officers a wide range of alternatives to get graduate-level training each at struggle schools run by the navy in addition to civilian establishments like Harvard.
Broadly, whereas alternatives to attend prestigious civilian faculties supply much less direct profit to a servicemember’s navy profession than their civilian counterparts, they assist make troops extra engaging workers as soon as they go away the navy.
Harvard has lengthy been President Donald Trump’s prime goal in his administration’s marketing campaign to deliver the nation’s most prestigious universities to heel. His officers have lower billions of {dollars} in Harvard’s federal analysis funding and tried to dam it from enrolling overseas college students after the campus rebuffed a sequence of presidency calls for final April.
The White Home has mentioned it is punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus. Harvard leaders argue they’re dealing with unlawful retaliation for failing to undertake the administration’s ideological views. Harvard sued the administration in a pair of lawsuits. A federal choose issued orders siding with Harvard in each circumstances. The administration is interesting.
Tensions had eased over the summer time as Trump teased a deal that he mentioned was simply days away. It by no means materialized and on Monday the president dug deeper, demanding $1 billion from Harvard as a part of any deal to revive federal funding. That is twice what he had demanded earlier than.
