Quote from an opinion piece from Dr. Parsons, a professor of philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he taught military ethics.
It turned out to be easy to undermine West Point. All it took was an executive order from President Trump and a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dictating what could and couldn’t be taught in the military and its educational institutions
Then came the executive order from Mr. Trump on Jan. 27 and Mr. Hegseth’s memo two days later. Mr. Trump’s order prohibited any educational institution operated by the armed forces from “promoting, advancing or otherwise inculcating” certain “un-American” theories, including “gender ideology” and the idea that “America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.”
Mr. Hegseth’s memo went further, adding that the service academies were prohibited even from providing instruction about such topics. Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth also ordered that the academies shall “teach that America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.”
The executive order is what I often refer to as "hand waving". It's aspirational in nature and short on reason. Examples of aspirational speech are "be good" or "Don't undermine the Constitution." Or as this EO does; don't do anything you aren't doing to begin with, ie Un-American behaviors, offering contradictory signals. It goes further and restricts subject matter to be taught. It claims to know that objectionable material is being taught, in addition to which it draws conclusions about professors and students that are anti-intellectual. That is to say it displays a resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it.
The faculty at the academies are vulnerable in a way faculty in other universities are not. They work directly for the people that are attempting to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Every bit of anti-DEI dogma is motivated by a Christian Nationalist framework passed to the GOP from Project 2025. And every bit of the fake American History they rely on as justification was passed to conservatives by Biblical Law advocates (Christian Reconstructionists like Rushdoony) some time ago.
Two streams of propaganda have converged. One older than the other. Both, deeply flawed.
Limiting the scope of education is a violation of the values our Founders held sacred. I will explain.
There can never ever be a reason to stop teaching students things that are factual as possible. The bad and the good must be taught because students are supposed to learn to engage difficult subject matter in a useful way. The order is specifically telling faculty they cannot do this. You may argue they are making cadets "feel guilty for being White". How does that work if you're specifically teaching students to engage with difficult subject matter? Of course it's difficult! The typical conservative comeback is to repeat the accusation without listening to the explanation of how college works. Teachers teach students to think and communicate those thoughts.
This is being pushed out by our government to every campus, regardless of who runs it. The academies are uniquely vulnerable.
Many believe America is a Christian nation and the founders were Christians who intended to allow their practices to be enshrined in law.
Of the fifty-six signers of the Constitution, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Paul Revere and at least nine other signers of the Constitution were Freemasons. They may have been Christian but they were actually and literally sworn to keep state and Church separate.
In short, most scholars see the Founders as a group as being religious rationalists. Not sure if this is a new term or not. But rational behavior is entirely in keeping with Enlightenment values. It doesn't matter if they called themselves Christian. Separation of Church and State is not contrary to Christian doctrine. These so-called Founders were deeply embedded in Enlightenment philosophy.
You might be a rationalist and describe yourself as Christian when someone asks because it's likely tedious and unwelcome to explain exactly how you arrived at your state of mind. It's a common condition today and there's no reason to suppose the Founders didn't suffer from it.
Jefferson, the author of the Constitution, was not a Mason. To him, the independence of a nation could not be separated from the independence of its citizens. Religious freedom was a vital part of the structure of a free society, and Church and State had separate functions. They should always be separate and free from the authority and possible tyranny of each other. Education was necessary for the growth of free minds in a free society. Knowledge should be acquired through public free education. Jefferson didn't believe in the divinity of Christ. Jefferson, however, was not a joiner and did not become a Mason for reasons of his own.
Religion advocate Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas flatly states there were no Deists among the Founders. Ethan Allen, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Adams were admitted Deists.
Some argue that Washington was a Christian because he attended church once a month. But he was a Freemason which makes the argument superfluous. People have to ascribe to the separation of church and state to be a Mason. Washington went to church once a month. Did it prove he was a Christian? Who cares? We know for certain he was a fervent believer that religion and government needed to be kept far apart.
If any of them privately or publicly rejected a tenet of doctrine in the Apostles Creed as did Jefferson, or was a Mason like George Washington, then they were not pastor Jeffress' sort of Christian who is willing to marry religion and state. Some were simply not Christians.
Another point against pro-Christian arguments about the Founders being Christian is that many who were elected or worked in government were required to belong to the Church of England in order to hold a job. We know which had government jobs but we don't know how they felt about it.
There were diverse beliefs among the Founders precisely because Enlightenment philosophy required one to examine and live by rational standards. The statutes you are familiar with are for the most part rational laws and not "derived from the Bible".
At the time, religious toleration was unpopular among European Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians. Toleration was attacked along with "Enlightenment" and it was considered strictly a temporary accommodation caused by political strife. The Founders, on the other hand, were of the opinion that freedom of religion was a central belief along with individual freedoms enumerated and guaranteed by the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights.
The Great Awakening was a movement demanding a return to spirituality during the early years of most of the Founders. Imagine being a teenager listening to hellfire and damnation sermons. If you've ever heard "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God" preached on Sunday, you were in the presence of Great Awakening theology. The author, Jonathan Edwards described a God who will visit retribution on those who don't satisfy his requirements. It is Calvinist theology, emphasizing innate human depravity, predestination and man's inability to have a good life without their brand of Christianity.
Fifty-six people are credited with contributing or debating the content of the Constitution. A few didn't sign because they didn't agree with everything in it. Fifteen of those thirty-five would be happy to tell you they firmly believed in separation of Church and State because they were Masons. Five were admitted Deists.
Two of the signers were Quakers which brings the count up to seventeen. Quakers may consider themselves Christian, but many Friends recognized that Christianity did not hold a monopoly on spiritual truth. For lack of a better classification, Quakers were Universalists. Back then Unitarians were not.
Quakers were hanged for heresy in Boston in the mid-1600s by Calvinist Puritans. Catholics were likewise banned from living there. The parents of our Founders could recount stories of religious intolerance resulting in execution.
Should we default the rest of the signers of the Declaration of Independence to Christian? William Hooper had a strong Deist streak but called himself Christian. Benjamin Rush was another Unitarian. Ethan Allen, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Adams were Deists, Josiah Bartlett a Universalist (not exactly Unitarian), Stockton Clymer, Stephens Hopkins and George Wythe were Quakers, and William Ellery a Unitarian.
Ultimately the Founders set forth separation of religion and governance in documents that required self-rule. They held to Enlightenment principles as well as whatever their personal religious principles were.
Limiting the scope of education is a violation of the values our Founders held sacred.
Parsons as a starting point: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/opinion/west-point-trump-military.html
Jefferson's words: https://srjarchives.tripod.com/1998-03/beless.htm
Jeffress book: https://ptv.org/shop/america-is-a-christian-nation-book/
On the unpopularity of toleration in Europe:
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