The Naval War College spent two days teaching senior military officers about "feminine power at sea."
Now Pete Hegseth is coming for every professor, administrator, and course syllabus in the system.
What he said next has every woke war college professor updating their resume.
Hegseth's 90-Day DEI Review Targets Army War College and National Defense University
America's war colleges exist for one reason: to take the military's most senior officers and make them deadlier, sharper, and more strategically lethal.
That's not what's been happening.
The Naval War College's annual "Women, Peace, and Security" symposium – a two-day event attended by 500 students from every branch – held panels on "art, peace, and security," "gender optimization," and "cultivating allyship in defense and security sectors."
A session focused on Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and the architect of attacks that have killed American servicemembers, covered "gender inequality, climate change, and environmental security" in the Islamic Republic.
Not Iranian missile capabilities. Not Tehran's nuclear program. Climate change.
Hegseth went down the list in his announcement video and didn't flinch. Seminars on "genocide through the analytic of gender."
Graduate programs built around abolishing law enforcement. Leadership courses that were, in his words, "recycled garbage from the old DEI playbook."
Classes that celebrated Hamas. He said these weren't hypotheticals from some radical campus across the country. He said he'd heard the stories from inside America's own war colleges.
War colleges had become a sociology class out of Cal Berkeley.
He directed Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata to establish a task force immediately.
The institutions under review include the Army War College, Naval War College, National Defense University, Marine Corps University, and the Air War College – every institution where America's future combatant commanders and service chiefs receive their advanced education.
The task force has 90 days to assess whether these colleges are "actually effective," identify deficiencies, and ensure the focus locks onto national security, strategy, history, and high standards.
How Biden's Pentagon Built a DEI Bureaucracy Inside the Naval War College
The woke infiltration of war colleges didn't happen accidentally – Biden made it official policy.
On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order mandating DEI across every federal agency and department, including the Pentagon. Administrators inside the war colleges did the ground-level work.
At the Naval War College, Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield arrived as president in 2019, immediately signaling that DEI was her priority. Biden's Pentagon backed her up by deploying so-called "gender advisers" who trained over 1,100 personnel at combatant commands and ran the race and gender symposia that became annual fixtures at the war colleges.
The Air Force embedded DEI requirements into service policy as far back as 2012 – and Biden expanded them.
West Point offered a DEI minor with required courses in "Politics – Race, Gender, Sexuality" and "Social Inequality." The Naval War College assigned Ibram X. Kendi texts and Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility as recommended readings alongside faculty PowerPoints on "How to Create an Anti-Racist Classroom."
One Naval War College professor publicly stated that both the Taliban and Southern Baptists use "biology and scripture to prove women's inferiority." She was shaping the strategic thinking of America's next generation of admirals and generals.
This is what Hegseth inherited. This is why the 90-day clock is running.
The Generals and Admirals Who Lead Americas Wars Were Trained in These Classrooms
The men and women who cycle through the Army War College and National Defense University aren't junior officers learning the basics. They're colonels and Navy captains – the officers who will become generals and admirals, who will command combatant commands, who will advise the President of the United States on war and peace.
China has spent the last decade building up military might for a potential invasion of Taiwan. Russia is fighting a land war in Europe. American forces are actively engaged in Iran.
The officers being groomed to fight those conflicts were sitting in seminars learning about "feminine power at sea" instead of Chinese naval doctrine or Iranian ballistic missile tactics.
Hegseth said it plainly: "If we're pulling officers out of civilian universities because they're too woke, then we better make sure our own universities are prepared to do the task properly."
He already banned military attendance at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Brown, and Yale. Turning that same scrutiny inward – on the Pentagon's own schools – is the logical next move and the more important one.
Chatfield is gone. But the curriculum she championed is still there. So are the professors who built it.
Not for 90 more days.
Sources:
- Pete Hegseth, "Task Force to Ensure Senior Service Colleges Focus on Building Warfighters," Department of War, March 13, 2026.
- Shawn Fleetwood, "Hegseth Orders Task Force To Probe DEI Indoctrination At America's War Colleges," The Federalist, March 13, 2026.
- Noah Robertson, "Hegseth announces task force to ensure US war colleges are 'effective'," The Hill, March 13, 2026.
- "War Sec. Pete Hegseth announces task force probe of senior services colleges," Fox News, March 13, 2026.
- Adam Kredo, "'Advancing Gendered Security in a Complex World': Inside the Woke Symposium at the Naval War College," Washington Free Beacon, May 15, 2024.
- John A. Gentry, "Woke Ideology Has Captured Military Academies – It Must Be Eradicated to Strengthen National Security," Minding the Campus, February 27, 2025.
- Gwendolyn Niles, "Course Correction Required for Naval War College's Women, Peace, and Security Program," Daily Signal, March 13, 2025.