Donald Trump has been in repeated battles with Harvard University in his second term in office. The Ivy League institution, once synonymous with academic excellence, has seen its reputation take hit after hit in recent years over charges of excessive wokeism, plagiarism by its former president, rampant antisemitism on its campus following the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and more.

Trump wants to wring a $1 billion settlement out of them, as we reported.

On Friday, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth took up the fight too, and he’s pulling the plug on academic ties to the school, saying they value woke above military efficiency.

This is must-watch from Hegseth; he delivers one of the most incisive explanations that you'll ever see of exactly what’s gone wrong at far too many of our academic institutions:

File this under: LONG OVERDUE

The @DeptWar is formally ending ALL Professional Military Education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard University.

Harvard is woke; The War Department is not. pic.twitter.com/0kpsvivtsQ

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) February 6, 2026

INSTITUTIONS OF INDOCTRINATION: 

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The secretary said Friday that the university simply doesn’t understand the warrior ethos and is instead pushing globalist ideologies onto our soldiers:

For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class. Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.

He’s had enough:

So, starting now and beginning in the 2026, 2027 school year, I am discontinuing all graduate level, professional, military education, PME, all fellowships, and certificate programs between Harvard University, and the War Department, for active duty service members.

In 2022, Hegseth made a show of symbolically “returning” his degree, a graduate Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

THROWBACK: https://t.co/L1sfZK8mjk pic.twitter.com/PbCJhMpa9L

— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) February 7, 2026

Hegseth wasn’t just singling out Harvard in his statement, however — he said the Ivy League as a group and multiple other universities have lost the plot:

With some exceptions, the Ivy League, as a whole, has pervasive institutional bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the coddling of toxic ideologies that undercuts our mission right here in this building.

That is why, in two weeks' time, components of all of our departments, Army, Navy, and Air Force will evaluate all existing graduate programs for active duty service members at all Ivy League universities and other civilian universities. 

The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost effective strategic education for future senior leaders, when compared to, say, public universities, and our military graduate programs.

He ended the five-plus-minute video with a mic drop:

We train warriors. not wokesters.

Harvard, good riddance.

For too long, many of our finest educational institutions have been allowed to fester in anti-Americanism, toxic wokeism, and hate. Trump and Hegseth are trying to Make Universities Great Again, and they’re right to do it.

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