By LTC Edwin L. Kennedy, Jr, USA ret, USMA ’76

“West Point is set apart. It’s special. It’s above politics.”
—SecWar Hegseth, 23 May 2026 Commencement Speech at the USMA (1)

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point holds a special place in American culture. Largely based on the heroic and patriotic service of past generations, the Academy has acquired an almost a revered status in American society.

However, during the last two to three decades, the Academy has seen an alarming undermining of the values that made the Academy a paragon of American values and culture.

Like a cancer, the acceptance of both military personnel and civilian academics that are antithetical to “Duty, Honor, Country” have infiltrated the Academy.

While many outside the Academy are focused on the symptoms of this invidious cancer, the root cause is the real problem. If the “root causes” are not eliminated, they will return like a weed that is cut but retains its roots.

This infiltration of the Academy includes civilian and military faculty, even to the level of department head status.

For example, the former chair of the history department, BrigGen (ret) Ty Seidule, Ph.D. is the face of DEI in the military. While he is physically ‘gone’ from the Military Academy, retired, his roots remain embedded there. His damage continues.

Seidule’s effects on the Department of History at the USMA have influenced a generation of cadets who were subjected to his ‘Woke’ influenced teachings.

His long tenure as an instructor, and then as the chair of the history department, was profound not just to the USMA, but to the U.S. Army as well. In 2015 Seidule came to the fore pushing his version of Woke CRT / DEI when he got himself featured on an ostensibly ‘conservative’ website, PragerU.(2)

What is more important however, is the explicit influence Seidule exercised to express his personal opinion clothed in the respectability of the U.S. Military Academy.

He wore his Army uniform in a highly controversial presentation of his own, personal views regarding General Robert E. Lee. His actions were disavowed by the West Point PAO who claimed that Seidule did not have permission to make his video in uniform. This is a clear violation of Army regulations. Is this the example cadets and other leaders of the Army should be emulating?(3)

What is interesting about Seidule’s relatively recent epiphanies regarding General Lee (and by inference, the South) is that they coincided with the anti-Southern pronouncements by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The SPLC has been heavily involved in sending “educational materials” to colleges and universities across the country for decades. The SPLC is allegedly an organization devoted to “civil rights” and “human rights” (according to their websites), yet have recently been indicted by the DOJ for funding the very racist and extremist organizations they supposedly oppose in “false flag” operations.

They are funding the organizations they claim to fight against!

Their “hate group” literature has been used for years by the Federal government agencies. The FBI and the DOD finally figured-out this scam and divested their involvement with the SPLC.

However, the damage has been done. It is objectively impossible to measure the effects of their slick, professionally prepared handouts and glossy trifolds targeting people and organizations they want destroyed. The SPLC target list of Confederate soldier monuments and memorials has been used by ANTIFA, BLM and other anarchists.

It is very reasonable to believe that Seidule was exposed to this propaganda in his years of academic positions as an instructor, then department chair.

Seidule’s “coming out” in his videos happened at the very same time the Department of Defense decided to end its decades-long mutual support of the now highly discredited and extremist, SPLC in 2015.(4)

Was this a ‘timely Seidule’ picking up the cudgel for the DOD shunned SPLC, or a total coincidence?

In 2015, Seidule was featured in his infamous video denigrating General Lee. Sadly, PragerU has used its otherwise excellent reputation to spread Seidule’s faux hate without any legitimate challenges.

As distinguished Army historian and former chair of the graduate history program of the US Army Command and General Staff College, COL (ret) Jerry Morelock, Ph.D., stated: “It’s not…researched…. based on new information or new evaluation of previous information.”

In other words, Seidule has not discovered any new information about Lee that was not already known. What he did is, based on his own personal interpretations, redefined Lee as something other reputable historians have not done since 1865.

Why? COL Morelock rightly speculates that it “…is nothing more than his revisionist ‘sucking up’ to his new civilian academic buddies.”(5)

It might be easy to dismiss these actions by Seidule as just circumstantial. However, 2015 was key at the USMA for another significant event pointing to the fact that stuff didn’t “just happen” in a vacuum. After a couple of decades of allowing leftist professors onto faculty, the results were predictable.

Cadet Spenser Rapone, a cadet with a major in history, was reported for very concerning anti-American social media posts; “…his online postings were “red flags that cannot be ignored”.(6)

So, Rapone, a student majoring in the department chaired by Seidule, was posting anti-American screeds, apparently with the knowledge of Seidule since one of his instructors reported the postings.

Then, to top it off, Cadet Rapone engaged in highly disrespectful and undisciplined interactions with a commissioned Army officer history instructor. In earlier days, Rapone’s actions were classified as “gross disrespect” and were grounds for very serious consequences, even UCMJ punishment.

Even though the instructor, LTC Robert Heffington, reported (360708005-Heffington-Sworn-Statement-18-Nov-2015-Signed-2(pdf)) this breach of military courtesy and discipline through Seidule, no actions were ever taken against Rapone.

Rapone became known nationally a few months later, when, at West Point’s 2016 graduation, he openly advocated for communism by wearing a Che Guevera t-shirt and displaying a sign inside his dress cap stating “Communism Will Win”.

He was allowed to graduate and only dismissed from the Army with a less than honorable discharge due primarily to public outcry.(7)

Unfortunately, this should have been a serious enough incident to garner some kind of reproach of West Point and Seidule.

Seidule was the chair of the department Rapone majored-in. He was notified by Heffington of the severe breach of military discipline and protocol by Rapone. He was notified by Heffington of the extremist social media posts by Rapone.

Seidule had the ability to influence the disciplining of Rapone. He didn’t. Instead, Seidule effectively protected Rapone by not pressing for any actions against Rapone. Seidule kept his chair position after the commissioning of the very first, openly communist officer (with a history major) from West Point.(8)

Under the Academy superintendency of LTG Darryl Williams (2018-2022), DEI was pushed harder. William’s “five year plan”, 2020-2025 classified “’inclusivity’ as equal in importance as marksmanship….”.(9) Seidule continued on as the chair of the history department during Williams’ initial posting.

In 2020, Seidule retired from the Army. Purportedly, his retirement was so that he could speak-out on topics like Confederate hatred more openly (than appearing nationally on videos in uniform).

In 2022, Seidule’s book and anti-Robert E. Lee and Me thesis was published. The timing was likely in a manner designed to piggyback on the outrage of the George Floyd incident. Like his YouTube and PragerU videos, Seidule does not produce any new information about General Lee.

However, Seidule became the instant hero of the neo-Marxists and those who harbored anti-Southern confirmation biases. Seidule provided the “proof” that Southerners (and others) who admired Lee for decades were really “closet racists” of the worst kinds. If one disagrees with Seidule, it is because of racism. End of argument.(10)

Another distinguished USMA graduate, COL (ret) Barrie Zais, Ph.D. says this about Seidule and his book in a very detailed and superlative review (see below for full review):

“Seidule, did, and continues to do much damage to the Army and West Point. Calling racism a “national institution,” he has played a key role in the cultural purge of Lee and Confederates at the military academy. It is all but certain that Lee Gate, Lee Barracks, Lee Hall, Lee Road, and Lee Housing Area will be erased from history by the cultural commissars. Heeding Seidule’s proposition that all use of the name “Lee” at West Point is “a protest against integration and equal rights,” the Military Academy leadership is all in on the purge.”(11)

It did not end when Seidule retired. On the way out-the-door, Seidule garnered honors from DEI advocate, Superintendent LTG Williams. He was granted a noncompetitive promotion to brigadier general, not completely uncommon for some retiring department chairs.

Again, as COL (ret) Morelock notes:

“The bottom line is that the title ‘Brig. Gen.’ given to a former USMA permanent professor/department head does NOT carry the same weight and prestige as an Army officer EARNING that rank on his own military merits — it was merely given to Seidule for ‘staying the course’ for 20 years as a fat-cat West Point professor. I only present this information to inform readers that there is a difference between ‘real’ US Army brigadier generals and those who, like Seidule, are simply awarded that rank upon retirement — he didn’t earn it, he got it as a ‘gold watch’ upon retirement;….”. (12)

The rank of brigadier general is a hefty rank and brings with it credibility and a perception of distinction, as it should. Unfortunately, for those that don’t understand how military ranks are earned and honorifics awarded, they are all the same. They are not.

Seidule has been allowed to use his rank to market himself as some type of super expert on Robert E. Lee and Confederate memorials. Appointed as one of the eight members to the “Naming Commission”, Seidule used his extreme hatred and historical bias to destroy reconciliation. One of his key targets, outside the Naming Commission’s congressional mandate (because it is a grave marker), was the beautiful Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington Cemetery.

“Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That’s why it riles me so much. . . .”13

Sadly, the other members of the Naming Commission were at the mercy of the extreme bias of Seidule as they lacked the necessary historical backgrounds to counter his “expert” views (he is, of course, a “general officer” and former head of the USMA history department, a “professor emeritus”). Seidule’s extreme views (cited in his book) influenced the other seven members of the Naming Commission to recommend to SECDEF Austin (another DEI / CRT advocate) to remove the Reconciliation Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.

In addition to his rank of brigadier general, DEI Superintendent Williams gonged Siedule with another honor,… “professor emeritus”. Supposedly he is the first history chair to receive this esteemed award.

This is no mean honorific. It lends even more credibility to Seidule’s reputation unfortunately. “Not all individuals who retire are granted the emeritus title, underscoring its function as a mark of distinction rather than an automatic status.”(14)

Sadly, LTG Williams, stamped approval on Woke history and interpretation at West Point by awarding Seidule emeritus status.

Seidule has, unlike many other emeritus awardees, cleverly turned it into a distinction that allows him access to many other venues, not the least to organizations like the Association of the US Army. He lectured its members on his warped historical interpretations, undoing years of reconciliation and good will by re-interpreting history through the lens of Woke DEI / CRT Marxist thought. Many recipients uncritically accept Seidule’s “Howard Zinn-istic” views.

So, where did Seidule go to peddle his new interpretations of otherwise settled history? Why is it important?

Seidule was subsequently hired by the liberal arts Hamilton College in New York under the auspices of the “Chamberlain Project”. The Chamberlain Project is funded entirely by the “Jennifer and Jonathan Allan Soros Foundation”. Jonathan Soros is purportedly the decision-maker regarding recipients of Chamberlain Project money.

The goal is to get “Woke” retired military officers into professorial positions at private colleges. The Soros are intimately tied to ultra-liberal organizations such as the Open Society Foundations (OSF) which funnels money to leftist organizations and is anti-Israel and pro-Iran.

The Chamberlain Project is intentionally cloaked in “respectability” by association and collaboration with “Blue Star Families”. Professors in the Chamberlain Project are nick-named “Soros Professors”.

Seidule, not only a Soros Professor, he is a “Fellow” at the left-leaning “New America” think tank which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bloomberg Philanthropies. New America is rated as “left of center biased” by unbiased media rating groups.(15)

The question now becomes, is Seidule the type of representative carrying the rank of brigadier general and the status of “professor emeritus” that should be representing the US Military Academy and the U.S. Army?

No. Public perceptions of the USMA and our military are crippled by the ilk of Seidule.

His views that closely reflect those of the SPLC, BLM and other leftist organizations and should have no place in our military.

Granted by DEI proponent, LTG Williams, Seidule’s professor emeritus award should be revoked by SecWar Hegseth for his associations with the Soros organizations, his advocacy of Woke revisionist history, DEI / CRT and especially for his extreme prejudice as a member of the Naming Commission.

SecWar Hegseth has done great work to rid the ranks of “progressive ideology” proponents but there is much more to be done. Let it continue with the culling of the intellectual cancer Seidule represents.(16)

ENDNOTES

1) https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/petehegsethusmaconvo2026.htm

2) According to their website, “PragerU creates free educational content promoting American values.”, https://www.youtube.com/@PragerU/videos. While PragerU explicitly states this goal, they are, in fact promoting CRT/DEI and Woke history by allowing unchallenged programs, such as Seidule’s, to continue to air. There are educational and factual videos challenging Seidule but Prager refuses to air them.

3) In 2015, COL Seidule presented a personal opinion talk while wearing his Army dress uniform in violation of regulations. He was not officially representing the USMA or the Army, yet his wearing of the uniform portrayed that he was. His video presentation was neither sanctioned by the US Military Academy, nor the US Army, according to written correspondence with Francis J. DeMario, Jr, US Military Academy Public Affairs office. It does not reflect either the official Academy or Army views, yet was given credibility by the wearing of the Army uniform and his announced position as the head of the Academy’s history department.

4) DOD finally dumped SPLC in 2025 after years of using the extremist products of the SPLC. https://dailycaller.com/2017/10/02/exclusive-dod-drops-splc-from-extremism-training-materials/?print=1  BrigGen (ret) Ty Seidule is not directly connected to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Seidule, however, has been extremely vocal on the same issues such as Confederate soldier memorials and monuments as well as discussions on “The Lost Cause”. Seidule has bought-into the same narrative arguments that the SPLC has marketed to raise funds; i.e., that all things Confederate are about “white supremacy”. His views align with those of the SPLC as do his attempts to not just challenge, but rewrite the narratives of history and the memorials

5) Unpublished review of Robert E. Lee and Me by COL (ret) Jerry D. Morelock, Ph.D. COL (ret) Morelock, a Vietnam combat veteran completed a distinguished career as the director of the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) of the US Army Command and General Staff College. Among other things, CSI was the graduate history department of the college and responsible for publishing numerous historical studies for the Army. In 2007, it separated from the USACGSC and became a TRADOC asset while a separate Department of History was re-organized at the college.

6) LTC Robert Heffington as quoted in https://apnews.com/article/57a1fd1e2df84cfdb2fc51375815444f and telephone conversation between LTC (ret) Heffington and myself on 8 May 2026.

7) The US Military Academy is a military institution guided by both Cadet Regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Unlike civilian institutions, military discipline is part and parcel of the academic realm as well. Cadets wear uniforms and are expected to exhibit military courtesy, appearance and behavior. Unfortunately, it seems that the atmosphere of permissiveness has arrived with the civilianization of the USMA faculty. Rapone, according to Heffington’s official statement, exhibited gross insubordination and disrespect. He should have been punished but apparently was not. Cadet Spencer Rapone, one of Seidule’s history majors garnered the unwanted attention of now Secretary of State Marco Rubio who stated: “While in uniform, Spenser Rapone advocated for communism and political violence, and expressed support and sympathy for enemies of the United States,”…. (Cited in https://apnews.com/article/57a1fd1e2df84cfdb2fc51375815444f) This is the “new” Military Academy.

8) Sworn Statement, DA Form 2823, dated 18 November 2015, Subject: Gross disrespect by Cadet Spenser Rapone, (360708005-Heffington-Sworn-Statement-18-Nov-2015-Signed-2(pdf) and, Open Letter by LTC Robert Heffington, October 2017 (https://macarthursociety.org/open-letter-exposes-corruption-cheating-and-failing-standards-at-west-point/). Heffington published a detailed and damning letter of the USMA after he retired, highlighting the tremendous drop in standards in academics, military discipline and honor. Ironically, the superintendent at the time was LTG Robert Caslen who had previously been the commandant of the US Army Command and General Staff College when I was on graduate faculty. His policies to loosen the honor code mandates were sadly mirrored when he became the superintendent at West Point just as they had been at the USACGSC. Heffington noted these lowering of standards in his letter. Caslen immediately attacked Heffington’s open letter by ineffectively excusing and defending the policies Heffington critiqued.

9) I can personally vouch for the effects of Seidule on his faculty from my personal teaching experience. In the summer of 2015, one of my Command and General Staff College students was one of Seidule’s history instructors. During the summer, West Point sent instructors to the abbreviated CGSC course and this particular USMA history instructor was one. This student demonstrated such arrogance and inability to accept facts that went against his preconceived beliefs propounded by Seidule that I wrote a letter to the Dean of Academics, BrigGen Tim Trainor who I knew personally, about my experience with this instructor. See also, West Point’s leftist-if-not-Marxist plebe American History textbook, 22 May 2025. https://macarthursociety.org/west-points-leftist-if-not-marxist-plebe-american-history-textbook/

10) The War On Warriors: Behind the Betrayal Of The Men Who Keep Us Free, Pete Hegseth, HarperCollins Publishers, N.Y. 2024, p 215. Chapter 14 addresses the DEI / CRT Woke problems at the USMA.

11) Review of Robert E. Lee and Me by COL (ret) Barrie Zais, Ph.D. COL (ret) Barrie E. Zais (USMA 1965) served two tours in Vietnam and commanded infantry units from platoon to regimental level. He holds masters and Ph.D. degrees in history from Duke University and has taught on three college faculties. He was the Course Director of the two- semester course, History of the Military Art, in the Department of History, U.S Military Academy, West Point. His detailed review (see below) is full of facts and logic that should be read in its entirety.

12) Unpublished review of Robert E. Lee And Me by COL (ret) Jerry D. Morelock, Ph.D.

13) Robert E. Lee and Me, Ty Seidule, St Martin’s Press, 2022, p. 216.

14) https://climbtheladder.com/what-is-emeritus-status-definition-privileges-and-significance/

15) https://www.influencewatch.org/organization/chamberlain-network/ See also: Wikipedia James Tyrus Seidule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Seidule “In 2020, Seidule was appointed the Chamberlain Fellow and visiting professor of history at Hamilton College.”

16) BrigGen (ret) Ty Seidule has promoted progressive ideologies within the U.S. military based on CRT. As department director of the USMA history department, he affected years of instruction to USMA cadets. His key position on the Naming Commission, responsible for the illegal removal of the Reconciliation Memorial, demonstrates how destructive his influence has been to the military and our country. His published writings and his affiliations with organizations characterized as left-leaning, raise very serious concerns about any impartiality he might claim. The influence of his unethical wearing of his uniform while espousing personal views and the use of his honorary rank and West Point emeritus status have been detrimental to the reputation of the U.S. Military Academy and the Army. Seidule has refused to respond to my email inquiry on 17 May why he failed to flag Rapone and have him disciplined for his actions.

_
LTC (ret) Edwin L. Kennedy, Jr enlisted in 1971 and graduated from USMA 1976 as an infantry officer. He is a graduate of the Israeli Army Armored Corps Commander’s Course. He spent 19 year teaching graduate studies at the US Army Command and General Staff College mostly as a retiree in three different departments: tactics/operations, command and leadership, and history. He has a son who graduated with the USMA class of 2008.

---

This review by Col. Barrie Zais, PhD, USA ret, USMA 1965, was submitted as a public statement to the Spring 2022 West Point Board of Visitors meeting held in Washington, DC and included in its minutes: board_of_visitors_minutes_03022022 (pdf) see page 100

Robert E. Lee and You

The most visible socio-political movement of our time is identity-based politics. In its broadest sense, it includes a range of gender and racial causes. Agendas such as critical race theory, diversity and inclusion, the MeToo movement, the 1619 Project, Black Lives Matter, and equity are all part of this larger counter-culture war. Most claim the existence of an American form of systemic and institutional racism and discrimination and call for some sort of social justice.

Today identity politics permeates governmental, military, and educational institutions at all levels. And it divides us.

Emerging as a manifestation of this movement is the recent work, Robert E. Lee and Me, (St. Martin’s Press, 2020) by Ty Seidule. The author, a former head of the West Point Department of History,  claims to have discovered that all we have been taught about the Civil War and the South are myth.

While in his position, Colonel, now Brigadier General Retired, Seidule presided over a fundamental shift in the teaching of military history at West Point until his retirement in 2020. Announcing that “it is important that we get our gender and racial agenda right,” large portions of the military history curriculum were eliminated, specifically the Civil War. As an example, the study of Lee’s brilliant campaigns was scrapped in favor of things like a Civil Rights staff ride throughout the South.

Military history is the data base of the military profession. When it is diminished, as has been the case at the West Point, the result is professional catastrophe.

Current faculty have told prominent sources, “Sir, it’s so bad I don’t think we are going to be able to fix the department.” Another more optimistic senior professor said, “Give us some time.”

Unfortunately, when one sets out to write history for political purpose, it usually turns out to be bad history. And Robert E. Lee and Me is just that.

The author’s purpose is to indict Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders and purge them from the Army and West Point. In a fit of self-righteous virtue signaling, Seidule declares that “Lee was a traitor and does not represent my values.” So Seidule proudly committed to “change our history to reflect our values.”

Some have argued that it is disingenuous to judge one’s views on an issue from another era by the circumstances and ideologies of today. Or judging historical figures based upon current mores and understanding does not lead to an accurate interpretation of the figure in question. Rather, they must be placed in historical perspective. If so, this book is the poster case of historical malfeasance.

Seidule’s method is to indict all white, Southern culture, and in doing so, take down its most revered symbols. How Seidule goes about this takes a classic page out of the Marxist handbook.

It starts with what is called “The Big Lie,” in this instance, that the South seceded from the Union and fought the Civil War for the exclusive purpose of perpetuating white supremacy and expanding slavery. Few, if any, of the hundreds of books tracing the coming civil war arrive at such a simplistic conclusion.

Of course, slavery was the dominant issue of the time, but the cause of the war was far more complicated than that. One must go back at least to James Madison, the Constitution, and the rights of states in the new nation.

But Seidule hammers his Big Lie over and over, four or five times in the Introduction alone. Once he gets the gullible to nod, the rest is easy. If the protection and expansion of slavery was the singular Confederate purpose, then they all must have been bad, and their version of events must be myth. And the actions of succeeding generations of Southerners must be evil and their historical interpretations, myth.

In history this is called a single factor theory. This is not to ignore decades of slavery and segregation and their evils, but just to acknowledge that single factor theories are always simplistic and most often wrong.

The author’s misuse of historical events and documents has gone unnoticed, as the book’s reception has been mostly unfettered acceptance. He is loose with both facts and interpretations.

His assertion that the Ordinances of Secession of the seceding states confirm that the issue was slavery is not true. Some of the deep South ordinances stress the subject of slavery, but Virginia and others emphasize threats to their sovereignty.

Seidule’s mean attempt to bring down a great man consciously omits facts such as two thirds of Virginia born officers in the Army went with the Confederacy and that in 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arlington House and the surrounding grounds, now Arlington National Cemetery, were taken illegally by the Lincoln Administration without due process. The court returned the property to the Lee family.

An attempt to advance “social justice” should not dispense with a respect for factual interpretation.

Seidule’s intent to smear Lee as a cruel racist is a most egregious historical assassination. Lee was at least ambivalent, at most opposed, to slavery.

However, his foe, U.S. Grant, only freed his personal slave in 1859, but his wife kept hers. There is some discussion whether the slaves were legally hers or her father’s, but they were in the Grant family. Years later she claimed the four were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. We know this is not true since the proclamation freed no slaves in Missouri where Julia Grant resided.

These are only a few examples of the author’s selective use of facts. What we get throughout the book are disconcerting nomenclature changes, he refuses to use the term “Union Army,” using instead “U.S. Army,” and ideological interpretations rather than statements of moral and political clarity.

The book is also bogged down by an overdone account of the author’s personal life and his purported epiphany.

Seidule, did, and continues to do much damage to the Army and West Point. Calling racism a “national institution,” he has played a key role in the cultural purge of Lee and Confederates at the military academy.

It is all but certain that Lee Gate, Lee Barracks, Lee Hall, Lee Road, and Lee Housing Area will be erased from history by the cultural commissars. Heeding Seidule’s proposition that all use of the name “Lee” at West Point is “a protest against integration and equal rights,” the Military Academy leadership is all in on the purge.

The Robert E. Lee Award for mathematics was eliminated and the West Point superintendent removed the Lee portrait from his quarters. Perhaps the Class of 1961 Reconciliation Plaza that recognizes post-civil war healing will survive. But that is not assured, as the current scorched earth movement shows no signs of abating.

Riding the wave of uber wokeism sweeping the nation, Seidule received an appointment to another commission charged with renaming the ten Army posts in the South carrying Confederate names. Installation names such as Fort Gordon, Georgia will disappear from history. And the name of John Brown Gordon, civil war hero, once Governor, three times elected to the U.S. Senate, and idol of the state of Georgia for 40 years, will be purged from memory.

It is no coincidence that Brig. Gen. Seidule is lauded in the 40-page June 2020 policy proposal authored by nine disgruntled West Point graduates. They allege that the Academy is racist to the core, that white privilege reigns, and that the institution does not accomplish its mission.

(MS NOTE: See: West Point grads CRT ‘screed’ against USMA influenced by former WP History teacher)

While political correctness, wokeness, and critical race theory thrive at West Point, expect no help from the very highest levels of our military establishment.

The Secretary of Defense recently told Congress that the military does not teach critical race theory. He was wrong. The West Point superintendent confirmed the use of the book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction.

And Congressman Michael Waltz, R-Fla., provided slides from a West Point workshop entitled “White Power at West Point” and “Racist Dog Whistles at West Point.”

(MS NOTE: See: Documents Reveal West Point Cadets Being Taught Critical Race Theory)

At the same hearing, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified that he saw nothing untoward about teaching critical race theory to West Point cadets under the title “Understanding Whiteness and White Rage,” what some cadets have called a “woke effort to inspire race-based guilt among students.”

The Chairman huffed that he found it personally offensive that the U.S. military was accused of being woke. He went on to say that he had personally read Mao, Marx, and Lenin and adamantly denied that political correctness and wokeism are rampant in the military.

The facts do not seem to confirm his view.

The Navy’s highest-ranking officer also wandered into the ideological stew by including several politically charged books on his officially endorsed reading list for all naval personnel. His refusal to address sailors’ complaints about Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist and what they called woke diversity training has drawn congressional attention.

Two veterans, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Tex., viewed it necessary to establish a whistleblower hotline to report official military woke ideology training. The line has been flooded.

So, how does this end?

Some are pessimistic and see a current more sweeping attempt to rewrite all our nation’s history. Prompted by attacks on the nation’s founders, in the waning days of the last Administration, the President signed an executive order
establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.

Calling America an exceptional nation dedicated to the ideas and ideals of its founding, the order noted a recent series of polemics grounded in poor scholarship that vilify our country. “This radicalized view of American history lacks perspective, obscures virtues, twists motives, ignores or distorts facts, and magnifies flaws, resulting in the truth being concealed and history disfigured.”

The order called upon all of us not to abandon faith in the common story that binds us to one another across our differences. Those symbols that bind are, of course, the American flag, the National Anthem, the U.S. military, and places like West Point. Disrespect of those only deepens the division.

It is identity politics that divides, rather than unites.

At the most fundamental level, the order concluded that an informed and honest patriotism taught in our schools should be the goal. In closing it is only fair to note that early on the Biden Administration eliminated the Advisory Commission.

Barrie E. Zais served two tours in Vietnam and commanded infantry units from platoon to regimental level. He holds Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in history from Duke University and has taught on three college faculties. He was the Course Director of the two- semester course, History of the Military Art, in the Department of History, U.S Military Academy, West Point.