安妮·马、康斯坦丁·托罗平 华盛顿——根据国防部长皮特·海格塞斯周二签署的一份备忘录，国防部将不再任命平民担任美国各军事院校的终身制大学教员。
ANNIE MA, KONSTANTIN TOROPIN WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will no longer appoint civilians as tenured college faculty at the United States’ military service academies, according to a memo signed Tuesday by Secretary Pete Hegseth.
备忘录将停止向平民教员授予终身制的决定描述为重新将军事院校的工作重心聚焦于作战的努力的一部分。
The memo describes the decision to stop granting tenure to civilian faculty as part of an effort to refocus the military academies on warfighting.
备忘录称：“为确保我们的教育机构坚定不移地专注于这一作战使命，我们必须解决那些允许平民学术规范稀释我们对战斗力专注度的结构性机制。”
“To ensure our educational institutions remain firmly focused on this warfighting mission, we must address the structural mechanisms that have allowed civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality,” the memo said.
终身制通常伴随着大学里长达职业生涯的学术任命。倡导者表示，这种工作保障是学术自由的关键组成部分。海格塞斯的新指令显然不会取消现任终身制教员的这一称号。
The tenure designation generally comes with a career-long academic appointment at a college. Advocates say the job security is a crucial component of academic freedom. Hegseth’s directive apparently would not remove the designation from faculty members who are currently tenured.
西点军校美国陆军军官学校、美国海军军官学校和美国空军军官学校均未立即回应置询，五角大楼官员在被联系要求置评时也未提供该计划的更多细节。
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy all did not immediately respond to questions, and officials at the Pentagon did not offer further details on the plan when reached for comment.
平民教员所占的比例因军事院校而异。在美国海军军官学校，这一比例最高，在其600名教员中，大约有一半是平民。军校聘用平民教员是为了在英语和人文学科等军事军官在其职业生涯中未予研习的领域和学科提供专业知识。
The percentage of faculty who are civilians varies by military academy. It is highest at the United States Naval Academy, where roughly half of the 600 faculty members are civilians. The academies hire civilian faculty to offer expertise in topics and disciplines that military officers don’t study as part of their careers, such as English and the humanities.
海格塞斯作出这一决定之前，保守派对高等教育中终身制教员任命的攻击已经愈演愈烈。这些限制终身制的努力通常被包装为遏制持自由派观点学者的举措。
Hegseth’s decision follows broader conservative attacks on tenured faculty appointments in higher education. Those efforts to rein in tenure are often presented as bids to rein in academics with liberal views.
在赫格塞思（Hegseth）周二发布的备忘录中，终身教职制度被指是导致“学术停滞、教师安于现状以及机构无法适应新需求”的主要原因。该备忘录还指出，终身教职制度使得课程设置逐渐偏离了“培养军人”的初衷，转而偏向于终身教职教师的科研兴趣。传统上，只有在教师出现严重职业 misconduct（如不当行为）或面临财务危机等极端情况下，才会终止其终身教职。在关于历史、种族、性别和性取向等敏感议题的学术讨论日益激烈的背景下，一些人认为维护终身教职制度尤为重要。
In Hegseth’s memo Tuesday, tenure was described as a factor that contributed to “academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs. Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics.”Traditionally, tenured professors can be terminated only under extreme circumstances, such as professional misconduct or a financial emergency. Advocates say it’s especially important to maintain tenure as controversy grows over scholarly discussions about history, race, gender and sexuality.
这一决定是赫格塞思推动军队教育体系改革的一部分。今年早些时候，五角大楼切断了与那些长期以来为军队培养领导人才的知名大学的合作关系，转而与基督教学校和公立大学建立了新的合作关系。此外，五角大楼还试图调整其为军人家庭运营的 K-12 学校的教育内容，引入了以西方文明和基督教为主题的课程，旨在将教育体系引向爱国主义价值观和古典文化的方向。
The decision Tuesday is part of a broader push from Hegseth to remake the military’s education apparatus. Earlier this year, the Pentagon severed longstanding ties with prestigious universities that had been a pipeline for military leadership, forging new relationships with Christian schools and public universities. The Pentagon has also attempted to reorient the K-12 schools it operates for military families. It introduced a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity, part of an effort to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning.
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.