AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (KOAA) — New guidance issued to U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) faculty and cadets wishing to attend or speak at outside events like academic conferences has triggered a wave of free speech and academic freedom concerns amongst staff.
Last month, USAFA faculty received an email that said “in response to Secretary Hegseth’s 15 Sept Memo, all faculty and cadet participation/presentations to non-federal entities must be approved by USAFA/CV.”
News5 asked USAFA for a copy of that Sept. 15 memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but the Academy declined to provide it and said to contact the Department of Defense (DoD), also known as the Department of War (DoW).
A copy of the memo was obtained by News5 after reaching out to a variety of high level sources. That memo is published with more detail below:
The USAFA email also came with an attachment that faculty must complete when applying to simply attend a conference, whether they are presenting research or not.
One line on that attachment stirred concern from some educators who reached out to News5. The line asks the applying faculty member: “Does content address DEI, gender, official DoW positions or policy” with a box to check ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’
It might not seem controversial to some, but the fact the question is being asked at all made one faculty member ask, “Wonder if that has not crossed a constitutional line?”
All current USAFA faculty and staff quoted in this report are kept anonymous due to fears of retribution for speaking out.
FREE SPEECH VIOLATION?
To address whether or not the new USAFA guidance might be a free speech violation, First Amendment attorney Steven Zansberg looked over the emails.
Zansberg said though the military is able to restrict aspects of free speech within the military structure itself, members still have rights as private citizens, including the right to freedom of speech outside of their role as a government official.
But he doesn’t believe the new USAFA guidance restricts free speech, at least not currently.
“The form does NOT prohibit those applying for approval to speak at academic conferences pledge/commit NOT to speak about DEI, gender, [or other] DoW positions or policy,” Zansberg said in an email. “It is curious that it specifically includes those topics. However, until someone is actually DENIED his/her request on grounds that they answered that question ‘Yes,’ and it was not about any official DoW position or policy, there really is no strong argument that this is a ‘prior restraint’ on their speech. (No matter how ‘chilling’ the form may appear).”
WHAT FACULTY ARE SAYING
Various USAFA faculty members made an array of comments related to the new guidance and possible restriction of attendance over gender or DEI discussions. A sampling of responses is below:
“Academic freedom is being attacked and undermined at USAFA. Unlike the best institutions of higher learning that encourage the free exchange of ideas at the university level, and encourage and trust their faculty members to challenge their students to enhance their intellectual growth, at USAFA under this Supt/SecDef/President, ‘educating’ future officers is not valued,” said one current USAFA faculty member. “They do not want cadets exposed to ideas they do not like because they would prefer to cultivate zealous followers, not genuine new leaders.”
“By making conference participation harder, whether through excessive bureaucracy or financial constraints on travel, both of which are being felt by USAFA faculty today, leadership stifles innovation and isolates its faculty from the broader academic community,” another faculty member said. “Supporting conference engagement isn’t a luxury; it’s an investment in the institution’s intellectual vitality, and a superb way of attracting future faculty members. If USAFA truly wants to foster academic excellence, they need to ensure their policies align with that goal.”
Another faculty member brought in a different perspective and said they are of two minds regarding the new guidance and the inclusion of the line regarding “gender” and “DEI.”
This faculty member said the pendulum might have swung too far the other way from the previous administration to the current Trump administration.
“Prior to current policy and this administration, there was absolutely a restriction on speech and active duty and civilians were censored/silenced into submission and compliance and unable to even question any DEI, critical race, gender theory because doing so resulted in disciplinary action and/or firing,” said the faculty source. “That was wrong and was definitely an environment of one sided opinion, fear and retribution.”
The faculty member said the premise of the current administration isn’t “wrong” in the sense that they agree with a push back towards a so-called “war-fighting mission.”
“We seem to have leap-frogged right over the trade space for discussion and discourse and are now in an era where discussion of those topics are still taboo,” they said. “As someone who was silenced and who lived through the previous era, it is more than frustrating to now be ‘attacked and accused’ from the other side of the political spectrum and to have my trustworthiness and/or mission relevance called into question.”
This faculty member said they need to trust “our people to engage, discuss, wrestle with controversial topics and to make up their own minds. Even still, the preponderance of conferences and events USAFA employees attend are actually operationally relevant and focused-DEI-related topics are not even a ‘thing.’ But now, we ALL have to go through this laborious and somewhat humiliating process, literally begging to be able to do our warfighting job.”
Thomas Bewley is a former distinguished visiting professor from last academic year at USAFA. He is able to speak on record about this new guidance without fear of reprisal.
“First reaction is that this is death by a thousand cuts. I think that it's a change that will interrupt the free flow of information, and as an academic thinking of going there for a job, this would be a significant red flag for me,” said Bewley. “I don't think I'd want to take a job there if I can't speak freely to my colleagues.”
Despite the new guidance not being an apparent free speech restriction at face value, Bewley called it intimidation nonetheless.
“It's very clear that the stated policy from September 15 from the Secretary of Defense, all DoD personnel, like 3.3 million of them, need to be aligned with the policies of DoD leadership,” said Bewley. “If you state that you're going to talk about policies, and policies include gender and diversity issues, then you're already in the suspect zone. And whether or not you'll even be able to go to this conference becomes a concern. And then you're under additional scrutiny.”
WHAT THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY IS SAYING
News5 sent a detailed list of questions for this report to the Air Force Academy, which are listed below:
- What is the implication if the faculty member or cadet checks “yes?”
- Will they still be allowed to attend the presentation or conference?
- Do the topics of DEI or genders restrict their access to attend or speak?
- If they may still attend even if checking yes, are there additional guidelines placed upon them?
- Anything else regarding that line?
A Nov. 21 response from a USAFA spokesperson did not directly answer any of those questions.
“Our efforts are intended to ensure all faculty, cadets, and staff participating in external engagements adhere to policies and guidelines set forth by the Department of War and the Department of the Air Force, as well as relevant executive orders, and to ensure proper stewardship of U.S. taxpayer dollars,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
THE SEPT. 15 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE MEMO
The Sept. 15 memo from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, which is the basis for the new Academy guidance, was not publicly published or easily available.
At the time of its release, Politico and Axios reported on it, but its details have been otherwise unreported until now.
In September, Axios wrote the “memo this month cemented restrictions on when, where and how the military and Pentagon leaders can engage with the public, noting that past ‘external engagements have tended to canalize toward certain types of institutions.’ It's the latest evidence of a Defense Department clampdown amid internal concern about leaks, palace intrigue and narrative control.”
The seven-page memo exhaustively details any events that are excluded from its restrictions and even goes so far as to say, “This guidance does not require engagement solely with institutions that align with the Department's viewpoints. The Department will make a concerted effort to engage with institutions whose representatives possess differing perspectives.”
However, in the very next paragraph, the memo states, “It is of the utmost importance for the Department to maintain consistent and aligned public communications that reflect the policy decisions made by the Department's leadership.”
Bewley, the former distinguished visiting professor, said the memo’s seemingly contradictory nature isn’t a mistake.
“My read of the memo is, it's very well written. You do it as a sandwich. You put the nice fluffy stuff at the beginning and the end. And you put the hard news in the middle,” said Bewley.
He called the hard news the portion calling on the over three million DoD employees to align with the policy decisions of Pentagon leadership.
“That's a communist perspective, that's not a democratic perspective. Yes, absolutely, we need to be respectful, but in academic circles, if we see a policy that won't necessarily support the success of the mission of DOD elements, we need to call that out. And that's academic freedom and that's what this discussion is all about. And I might say that this discussion, yes, it hits Air Force Academy quite hard, but this is now a national issue. The September 15 memo was not Air Force-specific.”
Email Senior Reporter Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@koaa.com. Follow @brettforrestTV on X and Brett Forrest News on Facebook.
Brett can also communicate via encrypted apps like Signal. Due to the sensitive nature of ongoing reporting from federal actions, he is willing to take steps to protect identities.
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