(Press Release) Yesterday, as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel,U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) led a hearing with the superintendents of the U.S. military academies.
During the hearing, the superintendents outlined their plan to educate and train America’s future military officers.
Sen. Tuberville emphasized the important role each service academy plays in ensuring our nation’s best and brightest men and women stay on the cutting-edge of leadership and warfighting.
During the hearing, Sen. Tuberville and his Republican colleagues emphasized the importance of focusing the curriculum at each institution on lethality and removing any traces of antisemitism or Critical Race Theory (CRT) from the classroom.
They also asked the superintendents about the process of hiring civilian versus military instructors and possible ways to boost enrollment, including by allowing academy athletes to pursue professional sports before completing their service.
This was the first time in 30 years that the service academy superintendents have testified together before the Senate.
Last week, President Trump announced he was appointing Sen. Tuberville to the Board of Visitors for the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Witnesses included:
- Lieutenant General Steven Gilland, Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy
- Vice Admiral Yvette Davids, Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy
- Lieutenant General Tony Bauernfeind, Superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy
Read excerpts of the transcript below or watch clips of the hearing on YouTube or Rumble.
OPENING STATEMENT:
“I’d like to call this Committee hearing into session. The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel meets this afternoon to conduct oversight and receive testimony on the status of the military service academies. Thank you for being here. The last time this body conducted a hearing on this topic with these witnesses, or with any witnesses from the academies, was more than 30 years ago.
We are fortunate to have these three distinguished officers here today:
Lieutenant General Steven Gilland is the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy; Vice Admiral Yvette Davids is the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy; and Lieutenant General Tony Bauernfeind […] [is the Superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy.]
As this is the first meeting of the Personnel Subcommittee in the 119th Congress, let me begin by saying that I look forward to working with you, Ranking Member Warren, thank you for being here, as we continue the bipartisan tradition of the Armed Services Committee in developing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Nothing is more bipartisan than supporting our men and women in uniform and their families. This subcommittee has a long history of prioritizing the well-being and morale of our servicemembers, and I am eager to continue that work as the new Chairman.
The military service academies are foundational to the successes of the military officer corps. In many ways, the service academies establish the culture of their respective service. Moreover, [the academies] occupy an important position in our society. They are perhaps the last universities in the country that focus on building character and improving the morality of their student body. The American people often perceive the academies as being emblematic of the entire U.S. military—for better or worse.
Over the last several years, the academies have lost sight of the fundamental reason for their existence, which is to commission officers with the education required by their respective military branches. All three academies have been sued for engaging in race-based affirmative action that is now prohibited at every other university in the country.
We have repeatedly heard over the last several years that ‘our diversity is our strength,’ it is not. Diversity can be an awesome advantage, but our unity of effort and shared [beliefs] in our Constitution and common values are our strength. Diversity for the sake of diversity alone weakens us.
A professor at the Air Force Academy proudly authored a Washington Post op-ed proclaiming that she teaches Critical Race Theory to cadets. Both West Point and the Air Force Academy established ‘diversity and inclusion’ minors, which may be trendy in other university settings, but were so unpopular with cadets that when they were abruptly cancelled by President Trump, hardly anyone noticed. More importantly, any effort to teach our future leaders to judge and sort people by immutable characteristics, like race, runs counter to the Constitution and is devastating to good order and discipline.
Last fall, the Naval Academy appropriately cancelled a lecture after it was revealed that the speaker planned to use the opportunity to make a partisan political speech. But one must ask why was this speaker invited in the first place?
[The academies] must always remember [why] they were created in the first place. The American people devote tremendous resources to maintaining all of these institutions. If the [academies] are not entirely focused on building officers of character to lead our nation’s sons and daughters in combat, then what is the purpose?I hope our witnesses will address these criticisms but also tell us about the great things that are happening every day at the academies.
The vast majority of the cadets, midshipman, faculty, and staff at the service academies are properly focused on the only mission that matters, which is defending our Constitution and the American people.
I thank the witnesses for appearing today, and I look forward to their testimony.
Now I’ll turn the microphone over to Senator Warren.”
[…]ON CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF CIVILIAN PROFESSORS:
TUBERVILLE: “Permanent military faculty are Senate-confirmed. Should we [Congress] have any input towards civilian professors, General? On your recommendation.”
GILLAND: “Sir, I think that when we look at the confirmation of our permanent faculty, which is a fairly small number, I would have to, we’d make that recommendation to you as Congress. With regards to our civilian faculty, I think it just—even with their swearing to the oath—an oath to the Constitution of the United States, I would ask, I’d have to go back and ask about their civilian hiring practices because civilian-hired practices and regulations that govern that are different from our uniformed members.”
TUBERVILLE: “Admiral?”
DAVIDS: “Very similar, except that I would say at the Naval Academy, we have a proven formula that works, sir. And that includes these incredible civilian faculty that are charged to support everything that we do there. They’re completely in in our mission and they complement the military aspect of our faculty as well, sir. So, when I say proven, I say that 89% graduation rate at the United States Naval Academy and a great deal of that is because of the incredible coaches, mentors, faculty, and staff that we have there are all focused on that mission, sir.”
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you. General?”
BAUERNFEIND: “Sir, I’m very comfortable under my authorities on picking the civilian faculty for our force as we go forward, but if our elected leaders want to have a voice in that, I’m also very comfortable working with our elected leaders to detail a process that enables us to work through that process quickly.”
ON ENCOURAGING MILITARY RECRUITS PURSUING PROFESSIONAL ATHLETIC CAREERS:
TUBERVILLE: “I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring something up about sports, and I’d like to get each one of your thoughts about this. I’ve always felt that playing sports was invaluable to leadership development. Many of the cadets and shipmen at your institutions are athletes participating on the various academy sports teams. They represent the best of your institutions and our country. Occasionally—occasionally—some of these athletes develop to an elite level and are forced to forego living out their dreams of playing the sport they love at a professional level because of outdated—to me—outdated regulations governing their service obligations. I’d like to see this year’s NDAA reflect a serious commitment to these outstanding individuals. When appropriate, these cadets and midshipmen should graduate and commission with their classes and defer their service obligation until their professional sports-playing careers are complete. These would be commissioned officers in our armed services subject to the same rules and regulations as their peers, while at the same time providing exposure and increased visibility to the academics while they play sports at the highest level. I know that’s not protocol for what we do as we speak. But General, I’d like to get your thoughts on that with an all-volunteer military now, we are looking for possible ways to get more and more young men and women involved in our academies.”
GILLAND: “Senator, the Army is a team contact sport. That’s how I view the Army. And those young men and women that are coming into the Army regardless of their background or upbringing better be prepared to get involved in a team contact sport [because] that’s what you all as citizens of this nation ask of us. As a result, when we think through the development of leaders of character, I’m looking for the—may not be the best player—because numbers don’t always define someone’s potential—the best player for the team. And for those individuals that have the elite capability to pursue professional sports, I absolutely support, and I think that we have to look at measures, as you outlined, from a commission perspective that would allow those individuals to go into that professional sport of whatever their talent is in, execute that, and then have them serve in the Army. And I think there are combinations of ways to do that through not only active service concurrent with their respective playing for a team. Of course, there’s different things that would have to go with that as they’re moving around and such if they’re treated, or there’s the deferral of the respective active-duty service obligations that they have. But I think that it results in multiple benefits, not only to each of our academies, but I think it benefits our services also through deliberate outreach and engagement that we would ask of those talented individuals.”
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you. Admiral?”
DAVIDS: “Sir, when I was a midshipmen fourth class, Napoleon McCallum was my upper class. The original ‘Admiral’ David Robinson was also in my upper class. They were heroes of mine, I saw how brilliant they did in their careers to not only bring in incredible talent to the Navy, to the Naval Academy, as well to supporting our nation. There are many ways to serve, sir, and they brilliantly in that. So, I am a huge fan of it, I appreciate it. We may look at this. I think that the return on investment is incredible, and I fully support it, sir.”
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you. General?”
BAUERNFEIND: “Senator Tuberville, I also, as a freshman, looked up to one Chad Hennings, a monster of a football player.”
TUBERVILLE: “Big ol’ boy. Yeah.”
BAUERNFEIND: “Yes sir. And benefitted greatly. He also, during that time, his value was not only was he an amazing football player, but he also went out and served and flew combat operations in Desert Storm during that time, bringing both of that immediate value, you know, that recruiting value to bear the service and the professional capabilities. And I believe where the NDAA is now by giving us opportunity for three per year is a great opportunity for us to pick those truly elite athletes that can go on to that next level. As a data point, over the last five years, we’ve had 20 Air Force Academy cadets or—excuse me, 22—that have moved forward into professional sports. Thirteen met their first seasons and unfortunately did not, were not able to continue, and they came back to active duty. And nine are continuing. And over that time, that two to three is, I think, an opportunity for us to continue to go forward. I would also ask, sir, as we have this conversation for pro sports to have a fulsome conversation of the impact of the transfer portal on our military service academies, and how that is taking young men and women away from service to the nation until they’ve had an opportunity to blossom as leaders.”
TUBERVILLE: “Yeah. Well, that’s a great point. And I look forward to visiting with all three of you about this before our NDAA is put together this June. And I know it’s a huge problem, and I can understand it’s a huge problem for you also. So again, we’ll sit down—I wanna sit down with all three of you before we get to that point in June—and hopefully, we’re gonna—we can work something out because I think it’d be a great tool for all of you for recruiting because y’all take our best and brightest and all […] of us in here, all the senators, we—and congressmen—we have an opportunity to send the best young men and women we possibly have in our states and you do a great job with them. So, I wanna thank you for coming today. This is a fact-finding mission. We haven’t done it in 30 years. We’ll do it again next year. And hopefully, we’ll make it bigger and brighter. We just want to enlighten people about what you do because leadership, discipline, teamwork is everything that goes along with what our country is about. And again, it’s so, so important. We can’t really do this enough, but thanks again for what you do, how you do it. And tell all of your cadets and midshipmen that we’re for them. And I look forward to being on the Board of Visitors at the Air Force Academy this year and visiting with you. And again, you’re our future. And we hope you use our young people at your convenience but also give them the best and brightest future they can possibly get because we’re gonna be, how we’re gonna go as a country is how they go. So, thanks again, and this has been a good hearing, and this hearing is adjourned.”
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