In a speech at the Naval War College in Newport on Monday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he had ended the college’s 12-year partnership with Brown in October.
“The only place more stridently ideological in one direction more than Columbia or Harvard is Brown,” Hegseth said. “It was long past due to end that relationship in service of breaking the paradigm of civilianizing military education.”
Hegseth also used the speech to lay out a broader overhaul of military education, arguing that war colleges have become too much like civilian universities.
Brown and the NWC signed the Research and Education Memorandum of Agreement in 2014. The agreement aimed to promote collaboration and engagement in addressing national security concerns, and included opportunities such as faculty research conferences, an annual lecture series and visiting fellowships between the institutions.
“While the extent to which Brown’s partnerships with the Naval War College can continue is unclear, our hope is that these important collaborations can be maintained,” University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.
Hegseth said that the “critical theory” and “corrosive apparatus of diversity, equity and inclusion are fundamentally incompatible with military service and antithetical to the Constitution of the United States of America.”
“Toxic and destructive ideas that corrupted our universities have little by little crept into our war colleges,” Hegseth said. “The reforms that I’m directing today are designed to reinforce military education, focus on winning our nation’s wars and reinforcing each person’s oath to our Constitution.”
Later on Monday, Hegseth also released a memo outlining 33 new directives to overhaul professional military education at institutions like the NWC to promote “combat readiness” and “practical warfighting.”
The termination of the partnership between Brown and the NWC comes after Hegseth barred Department of Defense personnel from attending graduate programs at Brown and other elite institutions in February. The new policy, which began in the 2026–27 school year, ended four military students’ attendance at Brown.
“Brown remains committed to supporting research and scholarship on issues important to the U.S. Armed Forces and to ensuring that student veterans and (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) participants continue to contribute their valuable perspectives and experiences to research and teaching at Brown,” Clark wrote.
Zarina Hamilton is a university news editor covering activism and affinity & identity. She is junior from near Baltimore, Maryland and is studying mechanical engineering. In her free time, you can find her reading, journaling, or doing the NYT mini crossword.
