Harvard Sidesteps Hegseth’s Ban On Military Students

Harvard University will allow active-duty troops to defer their admission for up to four years in response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ban on academic involvement with the school — a rebuke of his attempt to sever ties between the Ivy league school and the military.

The university will also work with students accepted into the Harvard Kennedy School’s programs to get expedited consideration at four other graduate schools that have not been banned by the Defense Department, according to a person familiar with the plans and a letter written for prospective students obtained by POLITICO.

“While we hope to welcome active-duty military students to the Harvard Kennedy School next year, we are fully committed to making sure you get the education you deserve — even if you cannot get it at Harvard,” Dean Jeremy Weinstein wrote in the letter.

The four-year deferral could allow troops who had hoped to study at Harvard to push the start of their studies into the next presidential administration. Typically, students can only apply for deferrals of one year.

The Pentagon declined to comment. Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the past decade, more than 500 active-duty troops, reservists and military veterans have enrolled in Kennedy School degree programs. But Hegseth, who graduated from the Kennedy School in 2013 with a Master's degree in public policy, has labeled the school “woke” and said its degree programs do not provide the proper training and focus for troops.

“Our military has had a rich tradition with Harvard throughout its history … but today, this university is one of the red-hot centers of hate-America activism,” the Defense secretary said in a video address released last month. “Too many faculty members openly loathe our military. They cast our armed forces in a negative light, and squelch anyone who challenges their leftist political leanings.”

The Pentagon in recent weeks has also canceled fellowships at a host of other prominent institutions, including Columbia, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The four institutions working with Harvard on the academic workaround are The Harris School at the University of Chicago, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and The Gerald R. Ford School at the University of Michigan.

Weinstein, in his letter, said individuals interested in transferring their studies to those schools will have an “expedited timeline and without significant additional work.”