President Trump is determined to strengthen the military, a goal demonstrated by his appointment of combat soldier Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. This move helped set the tone for further actions, including the recent mass dismissal of members of the Boards of Visitors of the nation’s military academies.
On Monday, President Trump made it known that he was removing members from the Boards of Visitors of four service academies as a response to what he called the infiltration of “woke leftist ideologues.”
In a statement on Truth Social, Trump, 78, emphasized, “Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years. 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 various Boards of Visitors to the service academies are one of three groups that oversee operations and curricula. The others are the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD/P&R) and the secretaries for each respective service (Secretary of the Army, Navy, etc.). According to a 2023 update of the Congressional Research Service Defense Primer: Military Service Academies, the Board of Visitors (BoV) has these duties:
The BoV serves as an independent advisory body on matters related to morale, discipline, social climate, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, and academic methods. By statute, the BoV for each military academy includes three Members from both the House and Senate, and the Chairs of the Armed Services Committees or their designees. Two of the Senate appointees must be members of the Committee on Appropriations. The President appoints six additional members to each Board.
It’s unclear as to whether the president can remove the members of Congress from those roles, but the six additional appointees, like other presidential appointments, serve at the pleasure of the president. But the Board of Visitors has great influence over the academies, and since these people are presidential appointees and members of Congress, it’s certain their “recommendations” carry the weight of orders.
