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The Department of War said Friday that it will end all professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard University.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth slammed the university in a video announcement posted on X, saying the department would be cutting ties with Harvard for active-duty service members beginning in the 2026–27 school year — a move he said was “long overdue.”
“Harvard is woke; The War Department is not,” Hegseth stated.
While Hegseth, who has a master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, said the U.S. military has had a “rich tradition” with the Ivy League school, he argued that Harvard has become one of the “red-hot centers of Hate America activism.”
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War Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a briefing with House and Senate members on Venezuela, in Washington, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“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. ”They’ve replaced open inquiry and honest debate with rigid orthodoxy.”
The announcement comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing feud with the Ivy League school.
President Donald Trump said Monday he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, which the Trump administration has made a primary target in its effort to leverage federal funding to crack down on antisemitism and “woke” ideology.
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Lawyers for the Trump administration have appealed a judge’s order requiring the restoration of $2.7 billion in frozen federal research funding to Harvard. The university sued the administration in April over the funding freeze, arguing in court that the move amounted to an unconstitutional “pressure campaign” aimed at influencing and exerting control over elite academic institutions.
Hegseth also criticized Harvard’s campus environment, alleging that research programs have partnered with the Chinese Communist Party and that university leadership has encouraged an atmosphere that celebrates Hamas, allows attacks on Jews, and prioritizes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
“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.”
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that military education programs with Harvard University will end in the 2026-27 academic year. (Omar Havana/Getty Images)
“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.”
In addition to Harvard, Hegseth took aim at much of the Ivy League, saying the schools have a “pervasive institutional bias” and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the “coddling of toxic ideologies,” that he said undercuts the military’s mission.
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.
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War Secretary Pete Hegseth described Harvard as one of the “red-hot centers of Hate America activism.” (Associated Press)
“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 concluded his message, saying, “We train warriors, not wokesters. Harvard, good riddance.”
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Harvard University did not immediately respond to Digital’s request for comment.
Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this report.
