The Naval Academy History Department is in a Spot of Bother

The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD has been—like so many degree-granting institutions—subject to institutional capture by the left over the last few decades. Paralleling what we have seen in the civilian sector, it accelerated to almost farcical levels in the last decade, and pulled the curve even further left since 2020.

The high-water mark for the hard left academics at our service academies was the final ruling in Students for Fair Admission v. President and Fellows of Harvard College & the University of North Carolina with the SCOTUS ruling in September of 2023.

In the quarter-century we have been doing DivThu, USNA has made a regular appearance, as it has been playing in this fetid garden for decades. The last half-decade, after slowly growing, they felt liberated to turn the knob to 11. Their Orwellian Diversity Peer Educator program down to the company level, Diversity Statements to apply for a teaching position, and the notorious Diversity Search Advocates (that we touched on again last month), for hiring staff.

I have to remind myself to give a little grace to those who are stationed or work at the Naval Academy. Change is hard. Liberation can be difficult.

Not everyone there was marching down the yard with a bullhorn in one hand, and the Little Red Book in the other. No, as in most leftist takeovers, most just tried to keep their head down and survive. Do good where they can, and hopefully not be denounced and thrown to the baying crowd. Some decided to take advantage of the moment, and Viktor Komarovsky-like, made good for themselves by ingratiating themselves with the cadre.

Some, however, were true believers. Chasing either US News college rankings, virtue signaling to their peers in civilian institutions, or, at its worst, saw an opportunity to make radical cultural change in the U.S. military through its future leaders.

Being in a hard-left part of the country made it even easier, if not inevitable. If you think the political monoculture in DC is bad, it is even worse in Annapolis. Such intellectual terrariums can create some fragile creatures that have difficulty with any contact with the outside world. Throw in all the perils of going full-academic at the university level…well…without some careful self-care, things can get wobbly fast.

In the profession of arms, a solid understanding of history is essential, foundational knowledge. It isn’t an elective—it is an existential requirement.

It has been clear for a while that something was not right in the history department at Annapolis. There are great instructors there doing great work. The institutional capital is deep and broad…but it has been undermined. This is the department responsible for the Bancroft Lecture series. Just a few weeks prior to the November 2024 election, they invited Ruth Ben-Ghiat to speak. If you’re not familiar with that dust-up, read this article to get up to speed, then come back.

Well, it looks like after wrecking one car, the kids are throwing a tantrum because mom and dad won’t let them wreck another.

This is not the time for the Naval Academy as an institution to call fire on itself by once again having activist leftists use its institutional capital for their own petty political games.

It appears the games are not over. Unwilling to have adult supervision, the Chair of the History Department has decided to make a sacrifice of himself to…well…let’s let him explain.

In a fashion, I respect what McCarthy does here. He is resigning on principal, which is an honorable thing to do—I just disagree with the cause he is willing to take this stand on.

There is a lot to cover here, so I’ll try not to do a full Fisking.

This is the Chair of the U.S. Naval Academy History Department. In this letter, besides the “Naval” in the “McMullen Naval History Symposium”, do you see any indication or recognition of this being a service academy? This could have been written by the Chair of the History Department at Brown University about something there.

Then there is this:

I keenly understand the difficulties of our moment,

“Our”? And define “moment.” What “difficulties” are there?

Is this “moment” that the Superintendent has decided that it is not in the interests of the Naval Academy or the Navy for already unstable, unreliable, and uncontrollable Moonbat faculty members responsible for a momentary lapse of reason before the election to bring discredit again on the Naval Academy and the Navy by using its institutions for some cringe-worthy resistance theater?

The self-referential performative drama here is a sight to see.

…vetting speakers and papers is not a good place to be for an institution of higher education, nor is it tenable in the long-run, if we are to remain true to our values as academics and Americans.

OK, training time out here. Full stop. Maybe it is time to seriously do a root-and-branch assessment of what we want our service academies to be, and what their core competency is centered on.

If we just want a butched-up sub-Ivy League school that likes hard math, then OK, I guess we can do that. If we want a service academy, then I think we’ve lost the bubble if this represents the mindset of the faculty there. The “values” are a bit different.

Remember, McCarthy co-authored an article nine months ago titled, It Is Time to Review the Naval Academy’s Curriculum.

Yikes. We may have dodged a bullet.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think USNA needs any fruit from that tree. He seems to have 180-degree lockoff on the mission of the Naval academy.

We have a classic case of where one conflates his personal opinions with institutional requirements.

I favored running the symposium as a normal academic conference.

The Naval Academy is not a normal academic institution. If you wanted to teach and be an administrator at Oberlin College, then you should have gone there. A half-century old conference is not a plaything for presentism.

…I favored cancelling the conference altogether rather than cancelling a paper…

OK, we need to see the paper in question. Maybe I am completely off-base here and owe McCarthy an apology and a few rounds at Dry 85, but this must be one heck of an important paper about naval history…and while we are at it, we should know who selected it for its, “merit” just so we know what perspective they brought to the selection process.

For the past five years, the History faculty and I have done everything in our power to build a stronger and more professional History Department.

Well, thanks for the heads-up. Combined with the Bancroft Lecture political posturing in the fall, this just tells me that every decision made in the last five years, especially in recruitment, promotion, and hiring practices, should be reviewed with a fine-toothed comb.

Don’t forget, this is the department that, for the better part of McCarthy’s chairmanship, entrenched ideological litmus tests in hiring - mandating “diversity search advocates,” pushing compelled diversity statements, and standing silently by while candidates were judged less on scholarly distinction than on the pigmentation of their skin or their position on the gender spectrum. He is not the only person responsible for this either.

Careful consideration should be made on the next chair that takes over from him. Very careful consideration.

I’m going to make an open call: if anyone can send me a copy of the paper in question, please send it my way.