By CDR Salamander | Substack
Having checked my notes, in Annapolis we have the United States Naval Academy. Sure, there is St. John’s College down the street, but there isn’t an Oberlin College, Annapolis campus.
You wouldn’t know that looking at who they are hiring to teach the next leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps.
Via Cully Stimson over at The Daily Signal;
…at least two civilian professors at the Naval Academy may be violating constitutional rights under the First and 14th amendments.
Two professors in the academy’s English Department have required students to state their “preferred pronouns” at the beginning of each class, according to students who complained to me. At first, students played along, but eventually they refused to engage in this disturbing behavior.
Instead of dropping the issue, the professors essentially taunt and harass the students to state their preferred personal pronouns instead of moving along and teaching the class.
People are policy. You get the institution you populate with the people you hire.
The political problems at not just USNA, but all the service academies—adopting the hard-left practices of the worst of leftist academia—have been growing for a long time.
Two years ago, we discussed their Zampolit program injecting political officers throughout the campus to search out “Thought Crime.”
Last week USNA was caught platforming a hyper-partisan event just a month prior to the election.
As with most things derived from Cultural Marxism, it is powered by fear. Cully outlining a culture of fear of students and staff afraid to be seen outside a standing hard-left political orthodoxy that is being allowed to grow.
I get notes on a regular basis to the effect from inside the lifelines at Annapolis. It does not belong in a military of a free republic, but it is getting worse.
Is inspiring a culture of politically aligned fear and compelled speech—wrapped in a blanket of the usual leftist slate of policies and practices, really what a service academy needs to force on their Midshipmen and Cadets?
Indeed, if you look at some of their hiring practices, it is exactly what they want, and they want more.
Caroline Downey outlined that a year ago at NRO:
The United States Naval Academy is hiring a professor specializing in gender and sexuality studies amid growing geopolitical turmoil that could test America’s military readiness.
The academy is seek an English professor with a concentration on “Gender and Sexuality Studies (open period or genre)” to begin work in January, 2024, according to the Annapolis website.
“We welcome subspecialties in disability studies, film, and multiethnic or global Anglophone literature,” the job description adds.
Behold the fruits from the orchards we planted.
Perhaps our nation wants its Navy and its military to wrap itself in the mantle of leftist political thought, from compelled speech to Cultural Marxism—the whole enchilada.
This is a choice that we’ve been drifting toward for a long time. The drift ended a few years ago, and is now a deliberate course.
As no one is doing anything to stop it, expect more.
Perhaps, just perhaps, with the extra light and attention, things may change—but I’m not sure that is enough.
Have anyone on the Board of Visitors spoken out?
The Alumni Foundation Board of Directors or Trustees?
First published on CDR Salamander’s Substack
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Some of the comments on the article
“CDR Sal, you were, still are, and likely will remain correct for some time into the future. This is not new, and is no longer a “drift”, and is a deliberately chosen course. AFA grad, saw this clearly 15 years ago, and it is accelerating. As you state, personnel is policy, those policies translate into actions, and those actions give you the desired result. That desired result seems to be a degradation in the officer corps of the U.S. military. And we are getting it, good and hard at all of the service academies.”
“In Memorial Hall it says “Don’t give up the ship!” Not only have the leftist Flags given up the ship, they’re scuttling it. And they’re proud of it. What a sad, sorry state of affairs in Annapolis.”
“I recall several instances where Victor David Hansen would speak about his time as a lecturer at USNA and he’d remark how taken aback he was of the attitudes of many of the faculty there. While the Navy is the ‘least martial’ or rigid of the military services since it has its own unique customs and formalities, he was shocked at how the attitudes of the many faculty resembled most other Ivy League Unis; prevailing Leftist attitudes knowingly inculcating future officers and planting seeds.”
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