Alma mater to which nation
The Pentagon has declared William & Mary — founded in 1693, alma mater to Jefferson and Monroe — too "woke" to train senior military officers. They didn't even bother to notify the school.
The College of William & Mary has been training Americans for public service since 1693. That is not a boast. It is a fact so foundational it should not raise an eyebrow. It's like noting that the Atlantic Ocean is wet. (Full disclosure: W&M is my other alma mater.)
Thomas Jefferson studied there. Joh Marshall. James Monroe. John Tyler. George Wythe. Henry Clay. Oh, and George Washington studied there too. (That's four presidents and a few others you may remember from your high school history classes.)
The men who wrote the documents, argued the principles, and built—however imperfectly—the architecture of American self-governance walked those grounds in Williamsburg and carried what they learned into the world. Crucially, they built the architecture to adapt.
The Trump Pentagon has decided this is no longer good enough.
On February 27, the Department of Defense announced it was cutting William & Mary from its Senior Service College Fellows Program, along with thirteen other universities it accused of harboring "woke" policies. The DoD statement accused the listed schools of failing to "deliver rigorous education grounded in realism" and of harboring "significant adversary involvement"—a charge so vague it functions as a threat more than an accusation. They can poison the well without having to name the poison.
William & Mary's administration described itself as "puzzled and saddened." They did not receive any official notification from the Defense Department explaining their inclusion. Instead, they learned about it the way you learn about anything this administration does—through a press release or Truth Social post, designed for maximum visibility and minimum accountability.
Puzzled and saddened. It's a measured response. It's the kind of language institutions use when they're trying to hold the door open, to leave room for conversation, to avoid escalation. You can read the dignity in it. You can also read the futility.
The absurdity of it all
Let's explore the absurdity of this for a moment, because it deserves more than a passing mention.
William & Mary's Army ROTC battalion is called the Revolutionary Guard. It holds a battle streamer from the Battle of Yorktown—the only Army ROTC program in the nation with that distinction. The school has been described, consistently, as one of the most military-friendly institutions in the country.
Its chancellor is Robert M. Gates, class of 1965, who served as Director of Central Intelligence under George H.W. Bush and as Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Gates is not a figure of the academic left. He is the American national security establishment incarnate, a man who spent decades at the center of the apparatus that the Pentagon nominally serves.
None of that mattered. The anti-woke monster must be fed.
If Robert Gates's institution can be labeled insufficiently grounded in "realism" by a Pentagon press release—with no direct notification, no stated evidence, no process—then the word "woke" has finished its evolution into something that means only this: "we have decided you are an enemy, and we do not need to explain why."
That is not a standard. It is a weapon. "Woke" also means awake.
What "woke" means now
The broader list of expelled institutions tells you everything you need to know about the actual criteria: Harvard, MIT, George Washington University, to name a few. These schools have produced generals, cabinet secretaries, intelligence officers, and heads of state across generations. The common thread is not some measurable failure of educational rigor. The common thread is that these institutions have, at various points, declined to fully subordinate themselves to the political preferences of the current administration.
This is what "woke" means now. It means resistant. It means not yet broken.
The pattern is consistent and deliberate. First, identify institutions with social and intellectual authority. Second, manufacture a pretext for punishment. Third, execute the punishment publicly and without due process. Then, wait to see who capitulates. Some do. Columbia negotiated. Harvard is holding, at least for now.
William & Mary, with a chancellor whose military credentials are beyond serious challenge, found itself cut anyway. No one seriously believes it failed its students. It's being made an example of. Thus, targeting even the most unimpeachable targets sends a clearer message than only going after the easy ones.
The message is clear:
"there is no safe harbor. There is no credential, no history, no record of service that protects you. There is only compliance or consequence."
Founded to educate a nation
William & Mary was founded 83 years before the Declaration of Independence. It has operated continuously through the revolution, a civil war, two world wars, the Cold War, and every iteration of American political dysfunction in between. It educated the men who invented the country, and has spent over three centuries educating the people who try to keep it running.
The institution that taught Thomas Jefferson to think about liberty is now, according to the Pentagon, insufficiently committed to American values.
The institution whose ROTC battalion carries a battle streamer from the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War is now, according to the Pentagon, a potential vector for adversarial influence.
The institution whose chancellor ran the CIA and the Defense Department under Republican and Democratic presidents alike is now, according to the Pentagon, too "woke" to train senior military officers.
You don't have to squint to see what's happening.
This isn't a policy dispute about curriculum. This isn't a serious argument about the quality of education at institutions that have been producing American leaders for longer than the United States has existed.
This is a loyalty test administered by people who have decided that the point of American institutions is not to think, challenge, or question—it is to confirm.
William & Mary was founded to educate a nation. What's being built right now has no use for that.
Non in cautus futuri.
