West Point teacher accuses school of quashing free speech

A law professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point filed a federal lawsuit on Monday, accusing the school of violating faculty members’ First Amendment rights. Professor Tim Bakken alleged that the school tried to quash teachers’ free expression both in and out of the classroom in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump. The January order, “Restoring America’s Fighting Force,” called for federal officials to scrutinize the curriculum and instructors in the U.S. military academies to ensure they did not teach “divisive concepts,” “race or sex scapegoating,” “gender ideology,” or anything suggesting “that America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.”

What, specifically, does the lawsuit accuse the school of doing? After the executive order, West Point officials pulled books from the library, removed words and phrases from faculty syllabi, and stopped offering certain courses and majors, the lawsuit claims. Academy officials also allegedly enacted a policy requiring faculty to get approval from their superiors before engaging with any external audiences while using their West Point affiliation. Communications requiring advance approval included conference presentations, media interviews, opinion editorials, social media posts, and journal publications, according to the lawsuit.

Bakken claims the intent of West Point’s new policy is to chill speech and censor viewpoints that may counter the views of the American military and the Trump administration. The lawsuit says administrators instructed faculty to avoid sharing opinions in the classroom. Bakken, who describes himself as the longest-serving law professor in West Point history, argues that not being able to express subject matter opinions on legal rulings is stifling to the educational process. He called for the lawsuit to receive class action status to provide relief to the dozens of fellow civilian faculty members affected by the school’s policy.

WORLD reached out to West Point for comment and did not receive an immediate response.

Dig deeper: Read my report on a California teacher who accused his school district of violating his First Amendment rights.