The Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to the edifice of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology in the U.S. military. With the full backing of President Donald J. Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a landmark directive last Friday mandating the end of all DEI-based admissions standards at America’s military service academies. From now on, admissions to these elite institutions will be based on one principle alone: merit.
This policy reversal comes amid a broader push by the Trump administration to uproot what the President has called “toxic ideology” that has infiltrated the armed forces and weakened America’s military readiness. The directive marks the most significant ideological and structural reform to the U.S. military’s educational system in decades and represents a return to time-honored values that built the strongest military in human history: excellence, discipline, competence, and unity under a common mission—not divided identities.
Ending the DEI Experiment
Under the new rules, race, ethnicity, and sex will no longer be considered in the admissions processes at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, or other service academies. The order gives them 30 days to comply. Instead, candidates will be judged on their academic achievement, leadership qualities, physical fitness, prior service, and other individual merits—such as athletic excellence or prior military performance in preparatory programs.
In the words of Secretary Hegseth, “Selecting anyone but the best erodes lethality, our warfighting readiness, and undercuts the culture of excellence in our Armed Forces.” A military obsessed with race and gender theory is a military distracted from its core mission: to fight and win wars.
Hegseth, a veteran and former officer in the Army National Guard, has been one of the fiercest critics of what he calls “woke rot” in the Pentagon. “This move is about restoring the sacred mission of our academies,” he told supporters during a press briefing. “We’re training warriors, not activists.”
The Battle in the Libraries
In a parallel and equally bold decision, Hegseth also issued a second memo requiring military leaders to scour their on-base libraries and remove all DEI-related materials, including those promoting gender ideology. The Associated Press reported that the document demands the sequestration of books and materials that “promote divisive concepts” by May 21, a deadline likely to be met with enthusiastic support from service members and families frustrated by years of cultural engineering.
This move follows a report by the Heritage Foundation last year that documented how DEI programming had flooded military reading lists and training sessions, often at the expense of tactical training and combat preparedness. Books like White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist—pushed in military institutions in recent years—will likely be among the first removed.
A Broader Restoration of Meritocracy
This order builds upon Trump’s January executive directive, Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness, which prohibited all race- or sex-based preferences across the Department of Defense. The order also included a policy banning transgender individuals from serving, citing concerns over unit cohesion, medical readiness, and costs. That policy was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, solidifying Trump’s authority to reshape military personnel policies in favor of operational effectiveness over ideological experimentation.
Supporters have hailed the move as a long-overdue correction to the legacy of the Obama and Biden administrations, which aggressively implemented DEI policies in military training, promotions, and hiring. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), a vocal advocate for military reform, praised the decision on X (formerly Twitter): “The U.S. military is not a social engineering lab. It is a warfighting institution. Trump and Hegseth are doing what must be done to make it strong again.”
Former Marine Corps officer and Republican Rep. Mike Waltz echoed this sentiment on Fox News, saying, “We’ve lost sight of what makes our military elite. It’s not skin color or pronouns—it’s grit, determination, and excellence. This is a return to common sense.”
Consequences and Challenges
While conservatives are applauding the shift, critics on the left are decrying it as “regressive” and “discriminatory.” However, public polling suggests the American people are largely on Trump’s side. A Rasmussen survey conducted in March found that 62% of likely voters believe the U.S. military should prioritize combat readiness and merit, not DEI mandates.
The decision is expected to have major ramifications not only for the academies but for the broader military bureaucracy. By removing DEI from its foundational institutions, the Trump administration is signaling a clear intent to rebuild the entire military chain of command on a meritocratic foundation.
The long-term consequence? A leaner, more unified military, focused entirely on defending the nation rather than engaging in divisive social experiments. Recruits will no longer be selected because of what box they check on a form, but because of what they can do.
A Turning Point for America’s Institutions
What’s happening at the Pentagon is also part of a much broader national pivot away from the failed ideologies of the last decade. In schools, universities, corporations, and now the military, the backlash against DEI mandates is growing. Americans are beginning to reject the notion that fairness means engineering equal outcomes based on identity rather than rewarding individual merit and effort.
This course correction is especially vital in the military, where life-or-death decisions cannot be made based on social theory. As Hegseth noted in a recent interview, “When you’re storming a beach or flying an F-35 into enemy airspace, what matters is whether you’re the best—not whether your identity box was checked.”
President Trump has made it clear that the restoration of the U.S. military as a meritocratic, apolitical institution is central to his 2025 agenda. And with the Pentagon now under Hegseth, that mission is well underway.
The Trump-Hegseth reforms are nothing less than a war for the soul of the U.S. military.With these new directives, the Trump administration has drawn a bold line in the sand.
