President Donald Trump revealed this week that he fired the boards of visitors at four service academies, arguing that they had been “infiltrated by woke leftist ideologies.”
The commander-in-chief removed the board members from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the Military Academy in West Point, New York, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, the Military Times noted.
“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump claimed on Truth Social on February 10. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”
The boards consist of appointees by presidents and lawmakers who meet on a regular basis to share advice on student morale, curriculum, academic methods and other needs such as funding and equipment.
Trump’s removal of the board members comes four years after former President Joe Biden took similar measures in 2021. The Biden administration asked for the resignation of 18 board members at the Army, Navy and Air Force institutions who were appointed by Trump during his first term.
Allies of Trump slammed Biden’s move at the time, claiming that he was politicizing non-partisan boards. The Biden administration said they had concerns about the appointees’ qualifications to serve. Those appointees included, among others, former White House press secretary and Navy officer Sean Spicer, former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and senior counselor to Trump Kellyanne Conway.
Before Biden’s measure, members of the boards who were not lawmakers usually served their full terms of three years, according to the Military Times. That included members serving across presidential administrations, such as several Obama appointees who stayed on during the first Trump administration.
The boards are made up of six members appointed by the president, three by the vice president, and four by the speaker of the House, in addition to one designated by the Senate Armed Services Committee and another designated by the House Armed Services Committee.
Former Republican Nebraska Senator and Obama Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was a recent member of the Military Academy board. He was the first enlisted combat veteran to head the Pentagon. Another recent member included retired Lt. Gen. Nadja West, a former Army surgeon general — the service’s first Black woman to be made a three-star as well as the highest-ranking woman who graduated from West Point.
A recent member of the Naval Academy board was Jack McCain, a reserve naval aviator and the son of John McCain, the Navy veteran who was shot down during a flight in Vietnam and spent years in captivity before becoming a senator and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. The first Black woman to command a combatant ship and the first woman four-star in the Navy, retired Adm. Michelle Howard, has also served on the board of the Naval Academy.
The Coast Guard’s former vice commandant and former Transportation Security Administration leader, retired Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger, previously sat on the Coast Guard Academy’s board.
Meanwhile, former Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning, who became the first openly gay leader of a military branch in 2015, recently sat on the board of the Air Force Academy.
