The U.S. Naval Academy announced that it would postpone a lecture featuring a politically charged speaker who suggested she would use the event to attack former President Donald Trump, less than a month before the 2024 presidential election. While the academy postponed the speech, critics demanded answers as to why it selected the speaker in the first place and whether the selection violated Defense Department protocol.
Last week, four researchers at The Heritage Foundation wrote pieces in The Daily Signal, highlighting the past remarks of Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University whom the Naval Academy invited to deliver its annual Bancroft Lecture on Oct. 10. On Monday, the academy told The Federalist that the lecture had been suspended. The academy confirmed the same in a statement to The Daily Signal Tuesday.
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s legal center, and Cully Stimson, the center’s deputy director, cited a Substack article in which Ben-Ghiat suggests she planned to use the Bancroft Lecture to attack Trump as authoritarian. They also cited Defense Department Directive 1344.10, which bans active members of the military—including the naval officers who administer and teach at the academy—from engaging in “partisan political activities.”
In her Substack article, Ben-Ghiat accused Trump of attacking the military and attributed his “attacks” to “his authoritarian character, desire to destroy democratic values and ideals, and loyalty to autocrats who see the powerful U.S. military as an obstacle to their geopolitical aims.”
Wilson Beaver, a policy adviser at Heritage’s national security center, and Matthew Lee, a Heritage intern, wrote an op-ed last week warning that the academy inviting Ben-Ghiat to speak about Trump “represents a perilous politicization of the Naval Academy, especially with less than four weeks before an election.”
Naval Academy Postpones the Lecture
Shortly following this criticism, the academy postponed the lecture.
“The Naval Academy’s Bancroft Lecture series is currently postponed,” an academy spokesperson told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “As a military service academy, the Naval Academy maintains a high moral, legal, and ethical bar in remaining a strictly nonpartisan training and educational institution. This includes avoiding all appearances of association of partisan political advocacy or endorsement in adherence with civil-military norms and Department of Defense Instruction 1344.10.”
The representative did not address whether inviting Ben-Ghiat violated the DOD policy.
The academy spokesperson added that “the personal thoughts and political opinions of guest speakers do not reflect the Naval Academy’s staff or midshipmen.” The representative also noted that the academy teaches its students to “be critical thinkers” such that “our focus is on how to think, not what to think.”
Critics Demand More From Naval Academy
Brent Sadler, a 1994 Naval Academy graduate who served 26 years in the Navy and now serves as a senior research fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security, demanded answers from his alma mater.
“While this lecture has seemingly been postponed, a public statement from the most senior naval leadership is needed to confirm action has been taken,” Sadler told The Daily Signal on Tuesday.
Sadler referenced the Naval Academy’s statement to The Federalist, which revealed that faculty members in the history department select Bancroft Lecture speakers, who then must be approved by the provost and superintendent.
“The Naval Academy’s superintendent, provost, and history department leadership must publicly explain the rationale for inviting Dr. Ben-Ghiat to speak on a politically charged subject weeks away from elections,” Sadler added. “Finally, the Naval Academy must not become a platform for activities that cannot bear public scrutiny.”
Sadler also called for an investigation into the incident.
Von Spakovsky demanded the academy cancel Ben-Ghiat’s lecture, acknowledge the error of inviting her, and apologize for engaging in partisan activity.
“I am glad the Naval Academy has ‘postponed’ a partisan, political attack on a major political party candidate, but why haven’t they canceled it?” the Heritage legal fellow asked in remarks to The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “I see no apology from the academy for planning on subjecting its students to this type of political propaganda.”
“Nor is there any acknowledgment that the invitation should never have been issued in the first place and that the academy was violating DOD directives on avoiding partisan election activity,” von Spakovsky added. “No wonder the academy did not publicize this event as it has past lectures—it apparently wanted to hide what it was doing.”