0:03

The US service academies are producing

0:05

a shrinking share of officers while

0:07

embracing more policies and curricula from

0:09

left leaning civilian schools. Some

0:12

observers say this is hurting the preparedness of

0:14

the military. In this episode,

0:16

we talk with a former Naval Academy

0:18

professor who is sounding the alarm over

0:20

the direction of America's service academies. I'm

0:23

Daily Wire editor in chief John Bickley

0:25

with Georgia Howe. It's Sunday, January 14th,

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and this is an extra edition of

0:29

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1:06

Joining us now is Bruce Fleming, former

1:08

professor at the US Naval Academy and

1:10

author of Saving Our Service Academies, My

1:12

Battle With and For the US Naval

1:14

Academy to Make Thinking Officers. Bruce, thanks

1:17

so much for coming on. First, tell

1:19

us a little bit about your background.

1:21

Yeah, I'm from what you

1:23

might call a true blue liberal

1:25

background. I have a master's from the

1:28

University of Chicago and a PhD from

1:30

Vanderbilt. I taught for

1:32

five years outside of the United States.

1:35

And in 1987, I was

1:37

offered the job at Annapolis and I was thrilled

1:39

to come because I admired the

1:41

Naval Academy. I have learned some things

1:44

about it since 1987, but

1:46

that's certainly the attitude that I had when I

1:48

came in. So your

1:50

most recent book is focused on what

1:52

you call corruption and rot inside the

1:54

military service academies. Can you

1:56

describe the significant changes you've seen in the

1:58

academies over your career? Well,

2:01

it's not only during my career, which actually

2:03

is year 36, things began to change for

2:05

the service academies after World War II. Up

2:08

until that point, it was basically

2:10

true that if you wanted to become,

2:12

in this case, a naval officer, you

2:14

had to go to Annapolis. So what

2:17

happened after World War II was that

2:19

ROTC was beefed up exponentially, and

2:21

officer candidate school was used to

2:23

a much greater degree. So the

2:25

percentage of officers produced by the

2:28

service academies has dropped radically. It used to

2:30

be close to 100%. Now at

2:32

Annapolis, for example, it's fewer than one

2:34

in five. About the same thing is

2:36

true of West Point. So about 18%.

2:40

So that's one thing that's changed.

2:42

They've dropped in relevance, first of

2:44

all. The second thing that's changed

2:46

is that colleges outside of the

2:48

service academies got really, really expensive.

2:51

Whereas the service academies, of course, are

2:53

paid for by taxpayer money. And each

2:55

student, I guess you could say,

2:58

gets a scholarship. We don't put it like

3:00

that. The cost to taxpayers of one

3:02

naval academy or West Point graduate is about

3:04

half a million dollars. That's

3:07

about four times more than what

3:09

an ROTC officer costs. So they're

3:11

expensive. We don't really

3:13

need them. We could get just the

3:15

same amount of officers by beefing up

3:17

ROTC. So those are two, what you

3:20

might call structural changes. The

3:22

service academies decided that they were going to

3:24

follow the way the wind was blowing. So

3:26

of course, the wind changed

3:29

in higher education. So the

3:31

service academies were forced by Congress to

3:33

accept women. In Annapolis, it was 1976.

3:37

The first women graduated in 1980. So

3:40

women arrived. And this was

3:42

dealt with really badly, incredibly badly. I've

3:44

talked to women from the

3:46

first several years. And it was a disaster

3:48

for them because nothing was done to make

3:51

the situation more acceptable to

3:53

them. But now, it's

3:55

close to half female in recent

3:58

classes. So women, men, men, men. And

4:00

majors were introduced. It used to be

4:03

that until 1936, in fact, the service

4:05

academies didn't give a bachelor's degree. They

4:08

were just training for the services.

4:10

The Naval Academy started in 1845

4:13

because it became clear that

4:15

the Navy, the ships they were on,

4:18

were so complex that they couldn't just

4:20

learn as apprentices. So it

4:22

was realized that they needed to have a

4:24

classroom component. And that

4:26

was introduced. That the classroom component

4:29

now is essentially identical to

4:31

what they can get anywhere else. So

4:33

you would think that we have all of

4:36

the developments coming from

4:38

the outside world. The kick

4:40

is that the institutions have

4:42

not gotten flexible. Institutions

4:45

outside of the service academy since the 60s

4:47

basically have given up on being

4:50

in the position of what we usually call

4:52

in loco parentis, acting as the parents to

4:54

the kids, telling them what to do. You

4:57

know, sex is not patrolled and so on.

5:00

At the service academies, at the Naval

5:02

Academy in specific, to start with

5:04

this, sex is patrolled. They're not even supposed to

5:06

hold hands on the 338 acres of what's called

5:08

our yard. So

5:12

that's ridiculous. They live in the same

5:14

dormitory. There are almost as many girls

5:16

as boys. Outgays are

5:19

no longer thrown out. And yet

5:21

they're punished for normal interactions. The

5:24

control is becoming more absolute. I

5:26

hope you can see where I'm

5:28

going with this, that we've loosened

5:31

what's going on at the service

5:33

academies, but we haven't loosened the

5:35

constraints on them. So as

5:37

the service academies become more like

5:39

and indeed are like the

5:42

world outside, the only thing that

5:44

differentiates them is the amount of

5:46

control that's exercised on them

5:48

by the administration. So I say

5:50

it's a pot that's boiling more

5:52

and more furiously. And of

5:55

course, in order to keep the thing

5:57

from exploding, the top has to be pressed down more

5:59

and more firmly. I think they

6:01

will at some point explode. I mean, they're

6:03

just not tenable. You said these academies are

6:05

concentrated battlegrounds of our current culture war. Oh,

6:08

absolutely. You're touching on that here, but can

6:10

you expand on that a little bit more

6:12

for us? Sure. The

6:15

thing about the service academies is related

6:17

to what I just said, which is

6:19

that they're run by the military that

6:21

has not just the usual administrative power

6:23

that you see at civilian colleges and

6:25

institutions, but the UCMJ,

6:28

the Uniform Code of Military Justice,

6:30

all the students are actually in

6:33

the military, in the Navy, at Annapolis, of

6:35

course, and in the Army at West Point,

6:37

in Air Force at Colorado Springs, and so

6:39

on. So the administration,

6:42

instead of just wagging their

6:44

fingers at them, they can

6:46

actually punish them with legal

6:48

means. So the culture

6:50

wars take the usual form at

6:52

Annapolis, but they're much stronger. For

6:54

example, the subtitle of my book

6:56

is My Battle With and For

6:58

the United States Naval Academy to

7:00

Make Thinking Officers. So the

7:03

battle for is I want it to be what it says

7:05

it is, which it isn't. But the

7:07

battle with is that I

7:09

started writing things about what was

7:11

actually going on at the service

7:13

academies at Annapolis close to 20

7:15

years ago. And the administration responded

7:18

not the way they should

7:20

have responded to what was

7:23

ostensibly a tenured professor writing

7:25

for outlets like the Washington

7:27

Post for mainstream publications. They

7:30

started punishing me. It started with

7:32

an angry letter from the then

7:35

superintendent saying it wasn't professional for

7:37

professors to write articles, and

7:39

it escalated from there through official letters of reprimand,

7:41

loss of pay. I was finally fired in 2018.

7:44

I was reinstated in 2019 retroactively. So what was

7:46

all this for? It

7:52

was for me objecting to the

7:55

administration forcing all of these culture

7:57

war changes down the throats of the United

7:59

States. of the students and they were ill

8:02

thought out. So number one was I was

8:04

on the admissions board and discovered

8:06

that what we were doing was racist.

8:08

If an applicant self-identified as African American,

8:11

he or she was held to a

8:13

much lower bar and then

8:15

we have, this gets a little technical, but

8:17

each service academy has a prep

8:20

school where they can send people who

8:22

meet no bars whatsoever and then they

8:24

declare them remediated and they send them

8:26

to Annapolis. So I thought that was

8:28

racist and I thought it was illegal.

8:30

I mean the Supreme Court as you're aware has

8:33

just killed affirmative action for

8:35

civilian colleges, but it's made

8:37

an exception, a specific exception

8:40

for the service academies. So we

8:42

can continue to let in students

8:44

based on race. So I objected

8:46

to that and I started writing

8:48

about it and I was

8:50

punished. So that was point number one.

8:52

Then we got the sexual assault training

8:55

wave where the Obama administration

8:57

defined title nine as a

8:59

way to punish men

9:01

who women had said

9:03

had assaulted them and assault was very

9:05

broad. It was, you know, the men

9:07

might have thought it was consensual sex,

9:09

but if the woman decided even months

9:11

later that she felt pressure

9:13

or she didn't do it willingly or she'd

9:16

thought about it and it wasn't a good

9:18

idea and so on, the man could be

9:20

slapped with all sorts of punishments. At

9:23

the service academies, they can actually be thrown

9:25

in jail with military punishments. It's not a

9:27

slap on the wrist. So that's what I

9:29

mean by the culture wars were being imposed

9:31

on us and rammed

9:34

through. So the third thing

9:36

is the current kerfluffle, if

9:38

you want, of what's called

9:40

DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion,

9:42

which means proactively looking

9:45

for ways to hire people

9:47

who are members of

9:50

what's sometimes called marginalized groups, which

9:53

means, of course, non-white people to

9:55

begin with. Women are

9:57

not the flavor of the month either. 20

10:00

years ago, everything was about inclusivity for women,

10:02

but that's kind of fallen off the front

10:04

burner. So now it's non-white

10:07

people and it's non-straight sexualities. It

10:09

sounds good to say, oh, we're

10:11

opening up to other groups, but

10:14

that means that you're not letting in people who

10:17

probably had higher predictors. So

10:19

it's the same old toxic stew of,

10:22

you know, race, gender, and sexuality. Only

10:25

it's imposed with this greater

10:27

force. These are bad because,

10:30

well, for example, the racial profiling that they're

10:32

engaged in, it sets students against each other.

10:35

Most of our kids do not come in

10:37

as racist, but a lot of

10:39

them realize that, you know, the black kids

10:41

are being given leadership positions who were less

10:43

qualified than the white ones who didn't. It's

10:45

either or. It's a zero-sum case.

10:48

So it creates tension in the ranks.

10:51

And you can say tension at, I don't

10:53

know, Harvard, which of course is, everybody's

10:56

talking about these days is par

10:58

for the course, but tension in

11:00

the military setting groups against each

11:02

other is lethal because the

11:04

point of the military is to have

11:07

unified action. And what we're

11:09

doing is creating dissension in the ranks. So

11:12

my commitment is not just to teaching an

11:14

English class the way I would be teaching

11:16

at the University of Maryland or Johns Hopkins.

11:19

It's to be preparing future officers. Once again,

11:21

that's the subtitle of my

11:23

book, To Make Thinking Officers. You

11:26

need thinking officers who don't react

11:28

in a knee-jerk way. They're under

11:30

pressure situation, maybe even battle. The

11:33

bullets are flying. They have to look

11:35

at all of the data and take

11:37

the best course of action, not necessarily

11:40

the unimpeachable course of action because there

11:42

probably isn't one, but the

11:44

best course of action. And

11:46

not only does that help us win wars, which

11:48

incidentally we haven't done for the last 75

11:51

years, it keeps their people alive.

11:53

I mean, only 10% of

11:55

the military is composed of officers

11:58

and 90% of them are the... So

12:01

if you have officers that can't

12:03

be flexible and come in with

12:05

prejudices or unable to take

12:07

into account data that they

12:09

don't want to take into account, people die.

12:12

And we lose wars, even at

12:14

a bigger rate and a faster rate and in

12:17

a bigger way than we currently are. So

12:20

these culture wars are bad for the

12:22

service academies. They're bad for the military.

12:25

It's not just the service academies. It's

12:28

the military as a whole. It really is

12:31

going down the wrong path with this stuff.

12:33

And I'm trying to say,

12:35

wait, wait, talk about this. Let's talk

12:37

about, look, I have taught between three

12:39

and four thousand students. Hundreds

12:42

of them have sat in the big red chair in

12:44

my office and told me what they think of the place.

12:46

They're all almost to a person.

12:49

They're disillusioned. And I

12:51

know what the problems are. Who doesn't

12:53

know what the problems are? The answer is

12:55

the administration. I am

12:57

indicative of the inability of

13:00

the military to listen to people who

13:02

can actually see what the effects of

13:04

these disastrous policies are. So

13:07

I'm worried. I mean, I'm a taxpayer.

13:09

I want a strong military. This isn't

13:11

about me. And it isn't even really

13:13

about the service academies. It's

13:15

about the military. I say when

13:18

you drop a pebble in the Severn River, we're

13:20

on the Severn River. It

13:22

makes concentric circles. The closest circles in,

13:24

you know, my story, it's kind

13:27

of a memoir, my book, the

13:29

Naval Academy. But then as

13:31

the circles grow larger, it's the military at

13:33

large. And then finally, it's these cultural wars.

13:37

It feels as if the United States is one half

13:39

of it is at the throats of the other half.

13:41

So the solution is, you know,

13:44

put down the pitchforks and let's

13:46

talk about this. You're

13:49

saying we're going down the wrong path. Do you

13:51

believe there is a path back? Do you actually

13:53

see that happening? What's the mechanism for that? Well,

13:56

the mechanism for it happening at Annapolis would have been

13:58

for them to get out of the way. off of

14:00

my back and let professors do

14:03

their jobs at Annapolis. Of

14:05

course, there is a problem here. You say, basically,

14:07

what do I want to do about it? The

14:10

more noise I make, the more possible

14:12

it is that some of the officers

14:14

who are in there will begin to

14:16

echo me. I don't know whether

14:18

it's going to change Harvard, but

14:21

if you start, again, to go back to the ripples,

14:23

if you work the ripples from big

14:25

to small rather than small to big, if we

14:28

can change the service academies so that they

14:31

are actually what they say they are and

14:34

encourage open discussion

14:36

in the military so that junior

14:38

officers are not afraid of taking

14:41

unwelcome information to their superiors,

14:43

which currently, in my experience

14:45

and talking with former students,

14:47

they are. The brass

14:49

don't want to hear what they don't want to hear. We

14:52

would have not only stronger service academies,

14:55

but a more effective military.

14:57

Right now, the problem is that

14:59

the U.S. military is, you

15:01

know, you can get all hooey on and say, well, it's

15:03

the greatest in the world, but it's the greatest in the

15:06

world to the extent that people keep

15:08

their heads and don't fall into this

15:10

trap of kissing the behind

15:12

of the level above them. The culture

15:14

of the military has got to change.

15:16

Now it's about keeping the

15:19

CO happy and up the chain to the

15:21

point where the superintendent of the Naval Academy

15:23

doesn't know what's going on. There's a joke

15:25

that says that when you become

15:27

an admiral, you never eat a bad meal and

15:29

you never hear the truth because there

15:32

are all these layers, all these

15:34

buffer layers of subordinate officers who

15:36

are each one is

15:38

afraid to tell unpleasant truths to the level above

15:40

it. And I say, look, I never told

15:43

students what to think. My

15:45

goal was to show them how to think

15:47

because when they graduate and go into the

15:49

service, as they climb the ranks, they're

15:52

going to be in positions where they, the buck

15:54

stops with them and they have

15:56

to make decisions. So they have to look at

15:58

all the data. to

16:00

justify what they do. They can't just

16:03

go with their gut instinct, although obviously in

16:05

the middle of battle with the bullets flying,

16:07

that's pretty much all you have left. But

16:10

you can train your gut instinct to

16:12

listen to what the other side is saying. And

16:15

that's exactly what the Naval Academy and increasingly

16:17

the military refuses to do. They don't want

16:19

to listen to people who are raining on

16:22

their parade. Now there does seem to be

16:24

a groundswell against DEI forming, so we'll see

16:26

if that starts to catch on in the

16:28

academies. Bruce, thank you so much for talking

16:31

with us. Okay. Thanks a whole lot. That

16:33

was Bruce Fleming, former professor at the U.S.

16:35

Naval Academy and author of Saving Our Service

16:38

Academies. And this has been an extra edition

16:40

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