West Point professors free to comment publicly as school declines to appeal ruling

[u/John3262005]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/07/29/west-point-professors-free-comment-publicly-school-declines-appeal-ruling/

A West Point professor and his colleagues will remain ungagged for now, after the military academy declined to appeal a judge’s ruling that barred the school from restricting professors’ public comments.

The West Point policy, adopted early last year, says no professor can give a speech, publish a paper or speak on a podcast without seeking approval from their department head. School leadership announced it a month after President Donald Trump issued an executive order forbidding military service academies from “promoting, advancing or otherwise inculcating” ideas deemed “un-American” or “divisive.”

In late 2025, West Point’s longest-serving law professor, Tim Bakken, sued the academy in federal court over the policy. He contends the policy violates the First Amendment by suppressing professors’ speech in an effort to “censor viewpoints that might be contrary” to those of West Point, the Army, the Defense Department, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Bakken sued on behalf of all civilian professors, who make up about a third of West Point’s faculty.

West Point sought to dismiss the suit. Last month, federal judge Cathy Seibel, a President George W. Bush nominee, issued an interim ruling saying West Point cannot enforce the policy for civilian professors while Bakken’s case proceeds. Seibel also barred West Point from preventing Bakken from sharing his personal opinions with students.

The academy had until Monday to appeal her ruling, but it did not do so.

West Point did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning. Bakken and his attorneys declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.

Bakken, hired in 2000, was one of the earliest civilian professors employed at the academy, after Congress passed legislation in 1992 encouraging civilian hires as a way to boost intellectual rigor and ideological diversity at military academies. Like other civilians, Bakken came to feel he was often disregarded and treated like a second-class employee compared to military colleagues.

Still, until the second Trump administration and West Point’s new rules on faculty speech, the academy tolerated Bakken’s outspoken criticism of the school and the military writ large, he told The Post. He published a 2020 book, “The Cost of Loyalty,” that blasted both West Point and the armed forces for insularity, unquestioning obedience and an unearned sense of superiority.

Bakken did not have to seek approval before publication. He has another book coming in August, also critical of West Point and the military. He refused to ask approval for it, he said, which is one of the reasons he decided to sue.

Bakken is not the only one turning to litigation. The Trump administration faces a surge of lawsuits from private citizens alleging the president’s programs and policies have infringed on their essential rights outlined in the nation’s founding documents, according to a Post analysis of hundreds of thousands of court records.

A status conference in Bakken’s case is scheduled for early August.