‘Wokeness and weakness’: Virginia college to lose Pentagon fellowship due to ‘woke indoctrination’

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- A Virginia college is among several institutions losing their Pentagon fellowships due to what federal officials are calling "wokeness and weakness." Another four Virginia universities may gain such fellowships.

Nearly two dozen institutions will see their Senior Service College (SSC) Fellowships eliminated starting in the 2026-27 school year, according to a Feb. 27 memorandum from the U.S. Department of War (DOW).

Through SSC Fellowships, universities provide career-enhancing programs to both military officers and civilians that help prepare them for high-level roles in national security and defense. Per the memo, this education is meant to produce "strategic senior leaders who are trained to think critically, free of bias and influence."

It is the DOW's position that the 22 institutions listed within the memorandum are not fit to provide such an education. Among those listed is the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg.

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In a Feb. 27 video posted to X, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said institutions like William & Mary had "utterly betrayed their purpose."

"For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain," Hegseth said. "They've taken our best and brightest -- the men and women who pledged their lives to this nation -- and subjected them to a curriculum of contempt."

Hegseth went on to say that "the study of victory and pragmatic realism" has been replaced by "the promotion of wokeness and weakness," adding that "true intellectual rigor" and "free expression" have been lost in favor of the "suffocating confines of leftist ideology."

"Let's be brutally honest about how we define our terms here: this is not education, it's indoctrination," he said. "It's a calculated, targeted assault on the core of our fighting force and it's a betrayal that we will no longer tolerate. The Department of War is finished subsidizing the corruption of our own uniformed class. We're done paying for the privilege of our enemies' wicked ideologies to be taught to our future leaders. We've had enough."

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Neither the DOW nor Hegseth explicitly names any courses or subject matters offered by these institutions that they feel to be problematic -- though Hegseth does say that colleges with SSC Fellowships should teach about "genuine national security issues" rather than "social justice activism."

In a statement posted on its website, William & Mary said that the DOW's decision left it "puzzled and saddened," adding that it has received no information on why it was included among the cuts.

"We hope to learn more because this action does not align with what we know to be the experience of military and veteran students on our campus," the statement reads, in part. "Consistently ranked among our country’s most military-friendly institutions, William & Mary has one of the nation’s longest and strongest traditions of educating military and public servants. W&M Army ROTC is called the Revolutionary Guard battalion and is the only Army ROTC in the nation that was awarded the battle streamer from the Battle of Yorktown during the Revolutionary War. Indeed, W&M Chancellor and alumnus Robert M. Gates ‘65 served as U.S. Secretary of Defense under presidents of both parties."

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Though no further SCC Fellowships will be offered at the 22 eliminated institutions starting in the 2026-27 school year, any student enrolled under such a fellowship for the 2025-26 school year may complete their courses of study, according to the DOW memo.

A total of 93 students are currently studying under an SSC Fellowship across the impacted institutions, the DOW said. William & Mary hosts one of those students.

Here's the full list of institutions losing their SSC Fellowships:

• College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia
• Yale University, Connecticut
• Harvard University, Massachusetts
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Massachusetts
• Tufts University, Massachusetts
• Saint Louis University, Missouri
• Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania
• Princeton University, New Jersey
• Brown University, Rhode Island
• Columbia University, New York
• Middlebury College, Vermont
• Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
• The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
• Center for Strategic and International Studies,
• New America Foundation, Washington, D.C.
• The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
• Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C.
• Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C.
• Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.
• The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, D.C.
• Queen's University, Canada
• The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies West Space Scholars Program

In its memo, the DOW also listed 21 institutions that are being considered as "replacements" for the eliminated institutions. Four Virginia universities made that list: Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Liberty University in Lynchburg, George Mason University in Fairfax County and Regent University in Virginia Beach.

Per the DOW, these universities made the cut because they offer graduate-level national security, international affairs and/or public policy programs, in addition to fostering "intellectual freedom, minimal relationships with adversaries [and] minimal public expressions in opposition of the [DOW]."

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Here's the full list of institutions being considered for SSC Fellowships:

• Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
• Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia
• George Mason University, Fairfax County, Virginia
• Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia
• Auburn University, Alabama
• Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, Alaska
• Arizona State University
• Pepperdine University, California
• University of Florida
• University of North Georgia, Georgia
• Iowa State University
• University of Michigan
• Hillsdale College, Michigan
• University of Nebraska
• University of North Carolina
• The Citadel Military College of South Carolina
• Clemson University, South Carolina
• Baylor University, Texas
• The University of Tennessee
• Africa Center for Strategic Studies
• William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies

Hegseth noted that the DOW will also be performing a "full, top-to-bottom review" of its own internal war colleges to ensure that they are "bastions of strategic thought."

For more information, you can find the full DOW memorandum here.