The Naval Academy navigated choppy seas this year, from changes in leadership to book bans and a last-minute victory in the Army-Navy game to cap off 2025.

The year also saw the country remember former President Jimmy Carter, the only academy graduate to hold the nation’s highest office, who died Dec. 29, 2024, at age 100.

Here’s a look at the year that was on the Yard in Annapolis.

New leadership

Shortly after being inaugurated, President Donald Trump fired board members at the nation’s military colleges in February, including six at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis — claiming they had been “infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues.”

About a month later, Trump installed new board members, including his former press secretary, Sean Spicer.

Then, over the summer, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reassigned Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the first woman and first Hispanic person to lead the academy as superintendent, to a Pentagon post. Nominated by President Joe Biden, she had served for less than two years. Female graduates of the once-all-male institution lamented the move.

Davids was succeeded by Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, a 1991 academy graduate and the first Marine to hold the job. He vowed to “cultivate a warrior ethos.”

A book ban, ‘divisive’ topics and national politics

In April, the academy removed about 400 books from its library shelves ahead of a visit from Hegseth, who had ordered the school to pull books that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion.

The action was criticized by congressional Democrats and hundreds of Naval Academy graduates. The list of books included “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” the 1969 memoir about life in the Jim Crow South by the late writer and poet Maya Angelou.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who serves on the academy’s board of visitors, tried to force the academy to return books to the library’s shelves during a May meeting. The motion failed.

By the end of May, though, all but a few had been returned after the Pentagon issued a new order that provided more specific guidance.

The book ban is not the only way that Trump’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion played out in Annapolis.

Faculty were told in February to avoid “divisive” topics including systemic racism and “gender ideology”; the academy stopped using affirmative action in its admissions decisions in March; and a lecturer saw his talk canceled in April when he refused to promise he wouldn’t discuss the book ban.

Campus shooting

Rumors on social media in September fueled on-campus confusion at the Naval Academy that ended in a midshipmen getting shot and wounded by a Navy police officer.

Online rumors said an active shooter was roaming the campus, possibly disguised as a police officer. That led to an hourslong campus lockdown and mass confusion.

While sweeping one room, a Navy police officer encountered a midshipman who hit him in the head with the butt of a parade rifle. Firearms are not allowed in the dorm. Officials believe the midshipman mistook the officer as a threat, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the incident. The source was not authorized to speak publicly.

The police officer shot the midshipman around the upper arm and shoulder area, the law enforcement source said. The officer and the midshipman were transported to hospitals for treatment.

Jackson Fleming, a 23-year-old ex-middie from Indiana, was arrested and charged with making an interstate threat after the lockdown. He has a jury trial scheduled for April 2026, according to online court records.

More leadership turnover

In November, the commandant of midshipmen, Capt. Gilbert Clark Jr., was removed from his position, just six months after starting the job.

At a Board of Visitors meeting, Borgschulte said the academy has standards and Clark was “not hitting those standards.” The academy said in a news release that Clark was dismissed after a “loss of confidence in his ability to effectively lead” the midshipmen in Annapolis.

Academy officials have not publicly elaborated about why they lost confidence in Clark, though questions have been raised about a video online that appears to show Clark partying at an Annapolis bar in uniform.

A Naval Academy spokesperson said it had no additional information to share about Clark’s departure, including whether he was still employed there.

A ‘W’ at the Bank

The Navy Midshipmen capped off the 2025 football season with a dramatic, one-point win over West Point during the annual Army-Navy game, played this year at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

Navy won last year, 31-13, when the teams met in Landover. Army won in 2023 and 2022. Overall, Army has 55 wins, Navy has 64 wins and there have been 7 ties.

The day featured pageantry, including parachutists and military flyovers. Trump attended, despite his previous bashing of Baltimore, and drew at least 100 anti-Trump protestors outside.

In addition to the high drama and ceremony, there was some needling of Trump for the unusual way he executed the pre-game coin toss.