Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s goal to get “woke” civilian professors out of military academies and replace them with military personnel would be a tall order.

Experts note that recruiting problems are top of mind at the Pentagon, casting doubt on pulling more military personnel into the academies, where around 50 percent current of instructors are civilians.

“We need more uniformed members going back into West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy as a tour to teach with their wisdom of what they've learned in uniform instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities that they left and then try to push that into service academies,” Hegseth said at his confirmation hearing.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville had asked the then-nominee about how he would handle service academies, which the Alabama Republican said had become a "breeding ground for leftist activists and champions of DEI and critical [race] theory." Tuberville said he knew a young man who had wanted to go to West Point but later turned it down over those issues.

There are five military academies, with three that reside directly under the Department of Defense: West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy. The United States Merchant Marine Academy is under the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, while the Coast Guard Academy falls under the Department of Homeland Security.

Hegseth will also have control over the five U.S. war colleges and more than 150 K-12 schools for military families.

“The problem that Hegseth would........

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