Trump Gets a Lesson in History-and the First Amendment

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Trump Gets a Lesson in History–and the First Amendment

Court strikes down his effort to tell West Point what to think.

Harry Litman
May 28, 2026

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The words, among the most luminous in the history of American constitutional law, come from Justice Robert Jackson in his 1943 opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which struck down a state requirement that schoolchildren salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. ... Tuesday, a federal judge in White Plains had occasion to apply its logic to West Point, issuing a comprehensive rebuke of one of the Trump administration’s most heavy-handed assaults on academic freedom.

Tim Bakken, the plaintiff in Bakken v. United States Military Academy, is a civilian law professor who has taught at West Point since 2000. In January 2025, within days of taking office, President Trump signed Executive Order 14185, directing the nation’s military academies to stop “promoting, advancing, or otherwise inculcating” theories deemed “un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational”—a list of adjectives so elastic it could mean whatever the administration needed it to mean on any given day.

The order’s specific mandates were as revealing as its amorphous prohibitions. Faculty were forbidden from teaching that America’s founding documents are racist or sexist. And they were required, affirmatively, to teach that America and its founding documents remain “the most powerful force for good in human history.”

West Point implemented the order through a new Academic Engagement Policy, DPOM 03-24, requiring civilian faculty to obtain prior approval from department heads before many external engagements. The policy subjected every word Bakken wrote or spoke within his area of expertise to administrative review and potential suppression if the content conflicted with Executive Orders or bureaucratic instruction.

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Harry Litman
‪@harrylitman.bsky.social‬

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"Seibel's reasoning here was dead on: West Point cadets 'are not snowflakes who will somehow be harmed by learning about controversial issues or competing viewpoints.' On the contrary, the military and the nation need thoughtful, critical leaders who understand the world."

Trump Gets a Lesson in History–and the First Amendment
Court strikes down his effort to tell West Point what to think.
harrylitman.substack.com
4:48 PM · May 28, 2026

"Seibel's reasoning here was dead on: West Point cadets 'are not snowflakes who will somehow be harmed by learning about controversial issues or competing viewpoints.' On the contrary, the military and the nation need thoughtful, critical leaders who understand the world."

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman.bsky.social) 2026-05-28T20:48:02.042617751Z