Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger hit back at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth after the Pentagon announced it would cut ties and funding relationships with numerous collegiate institutions over what it described as woke ideologies.
A Pentagon leadership memo initialed ‘PBH’ — the secretary’s full name is Peter Brian Hegseth — sent just before the U.S. bombed Iran and entitled ‘Aligning senior service college opportunities with American values,’ laid out an examination of standing ‘Professional Military Education institutions, [the] bedrock upon which we build lethal warfighters grounded in the founding principles that underpin American
Spanberger fired back after it was reported that the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., would be affected. The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot covered her remarks at a high school in Hampton — about halfway between the two cities.
Spanberger said the move is an ‘outrageous attack at yet another point of pride in Virginia,’ as the memo said the Senior Service College programs there would be ended and that servicemembers would lose support.
‘The idea that the Pentagon would pull back from this fellowship program that has been long a fixture at William & Mary is just outrageous,’ she said, according to the paper.
The Pentagon memo said the department will ‘no longer invest in institutions that fail to sharpen our leaders’ warfighting capabilities or that undermine the very values they swore to defend,’ and that more than a dozen schools faced termination.
