West Point disbands student-led clubs after Trump’s DEI order
West Point disbands student-led clubs after Trump’s DEI order
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US military academy clubs include Society of Women Engineers, Latin Cultural Club and an LGBTQ+ support group. The US military academy at West Point has dissolved 12 student-led cultural and professional clubs, following executive orders from the Trump administration targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs across federal institutions. A memorandum signed by DC Chad Foster this week, verified by the Washington Post, instructs the immediate shutdown of clubs including the Society of Women Engineers, the Latin Cultural Club and Spectrum, an LGBTQ+ support group. The directive requires these organisations to remove all public-facing content and cease all activities.
The disbanded clubs, many of which have existed for decades, represented diverse cadet experiences, including ethnic heritage groups, professional engineering societies and cultural understanding forums. Among those eliminated are organisations supporting Asian Pacific, Native American and Vietnamese American cadets, as well as groups focused on women’s and LGBTQ+ leadership. The academy, which recently selected 280 women among 1,230 cadets for its 2028 class, has been at the centre of ongoing debates about diversity in military education. Last year, the supreme court rejected a challenge to West Point’s race-conscious admissions policies.
Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, wrote in a late January memo that DEI policies are “incompatible with the values” of the defense department, and would go on to establish a taskforce to eliminate such programs. Hegseth on 31 January instructed the Pentagon to stop celebrating “identity” months such as Black History Month and Pride Month, though the White House posted a proclamation in support of February as Black History Month that day.
In response to the shuttering of clubs, West Point LGBTQ+ alumni group Knights Out posted a statement on Instagram saying: “No executive order or policy will stop us from protecting and preserving our extraordinary community.”. The full list of disbanded clubs includes professional societies representing Black, Hispanic and female engineers, cultural forums, and support groups – all of which were previously described as open to all cadets regardless of identity.
