The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., has ordered a dozen cadet extracurricular and social clubs to immediately and permanently "cease all activities," with all affected groups centered on gender, race and ethnicity, the school acknowledged Wednesday.

A memo dated Feb. 4 and signed by Chad Foster, deputy commandant at West Point, directed the clubs to immediately disband; cancel any trips, meetings, events, and other activities; and "unpublish, deactivate, archive, or otherwise remove all public facing content."

The clubs are also not authorized to continue informal activities using government time, resources or facilities, as noted in the memo notes.

The shutdown, which affects clubs including the Society of Women Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers Club, is meant to comply with the Trump administration's axing of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government, according to the document.

Webpages for the disbanded groups, which were listed as "affinity clubs" on West Point's directory, have been removed from the academy's site.

Where the sites once were, an

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