Faculty at the Naval Academy are no longer permitted to use materials in the classroom that teach about systemic racism and sexism, according to an internal email obtained by The Baltimore Banner.

Instructors have also been told not to promote the concepts of “environmental justice” or “gender ideology.“ Officials at the military college confirmed to The Banner that the email was sent by the provost’s office earlier this week.

The changes come as the Trump administration has targeted diversity programs, signing executive orders to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices across the federal government and halting grant funding for programs that study diversity.

President Donald Trump has also placed federal workers in roles focusing on DEI, which he calls illegal, on leave. The moves have unsettled universities and other organizations that rely on federal funding, as they look to interpret the broad and vague directives, some of which are facing legal challenges.

This week, Trump said he had dismissed the presidential appointees on the boards of the nation’s military academies, saying they had been “infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues.” And last month he signed an executive order to eliminate DEI offices and initiatives at the academies.

U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a new congressional appointee to the academy’s board of visitors, voiced concern about the Trump administration’s actions.

“A Navy and Marine Corps that look like our country — and receive an education that teaches the accurate history of our nation — is critical to our national security and ability to influence strong democratic principles abroad,“ the Maryland Democrat said in a statement Friday. “This Administration’s clear goal of erasing the history and diversity of our great nation only sets us back.”

Trump has long faced questions about his attitudes on race, and during his first term he famously said there were “very fine people on both sides” after a violent and deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. He and other Republicans have increasingly leaned into positions that challenge what they call “wokeness” and teachings of U.S. history that assign blame to whites or promote the concept of systemic racism.

Critics have also long accused Trump of sexism. More than a dozen women have accused him of assault or harassment, and in 2023 he was found liable by a New York jury of sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. He has denied all of the accusations.

The Trump administration’s moves to restrict what is taught at the Naval Academy come 13 months after Vice Adm. Yvette Davids became the academy’s first female and first Latina superintendent.

The email by Provost Samara Firebaugh instructs faculty to search course materials for words like “diversity,” “minority,” “belonging,” “bias,” “representation,” and “oppression.”

“Do not use materials that can be interpreted to assign blame to generalized groups for enduring social conditions, particularly discrimination or inequality,” Firebaugh said in the email message. “Do not employ readings or other materials that promote the concepts of ‘gender ideology,’ ‘divisive concepts,’ ‘race or sex stereotyping,’ and ‘race or sex scapegoating,’ including critical race theory, intersectionality, privilege, patriarchy or other such theories.”

Instructors were also told not to use materials in the classroom that focus on gender fluidity, identity, marginalization, othering or “similar phenomena.” The guidance instructs faculty to avoid asking students for their preferred pronouns.

Faculty can teach the grammar of “linguistic genders” as necessary within the precise context of foreign language instruction, as long as it is not related to gender ideology or identity.

The provost’s email “provides more detailed guidance and clarity to ensure course materials and assignments are in alignment with all Executive Orders,” the academy said in a statement.

Trump’s executive order, signed soon after he took office, prohibits the Naval Academy and other military colleges from “promoting, advancing or otherwise inculcating” what the new administration calls “un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist and irrational theories.”

Colleges across the country are making policy changes to comply with the Trump administration’s executive order. Rutgers University canceled an HBCU-centered event, and the University of North Carolina system no longer requires students to take general-education courses related to DEI. Meanwhile, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point disbanded roughly a dozen identity-based clubs to abide by the executive order, including the Society of Black Engineers at West Point and the pro-LGBTQ club, Spectrum.

Trump said in a social media post that his goal in dismissing the presidential appointees on the military colleges’ boards was to “make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”

Amy McGrath, who was appointed to the Naval Academy’s board by President Joe Biden, noted on X this week that the Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy and West Point top U.S. News’ rankings of public colleges.

“Seems like our academies are ALREADY great,” McGrath tweeted.

About the Education Hub: This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.