Dear Sir/Ma’am,
Before you read any further, please understand that the following
paragraphs come from a place of intense devotion and loyalty to West
Point. My experience as a cadet had a profound impact upon who I am and
upon the course of my life, and I remain forever grateful
that I have the opportunity to be a part of the Long Gray Line. I
firmly believe West Point is a national treasure and that it can and
should remain a vitally important source of well trained, disciplined,
highly educated Army officers and civilian leaders.
However, during my time on the West Point faculty (2006-2009 and again
from 2013-2017), I personally witnessed a series of fundamental changes
at West Point that have eroded it to the point where I question whether
the institution should even remain open.
The recent coverage of 2LT Spenser Rapone – an avowed Communist and
sworn enemy of the United States – dramatically highlighted this
disturbing trend. Given my recent tenure on the West Point faculty and
my direct interactions with Rapone, his “mentors,” and
with the Academy’s leadership, I believe I can shed light on how
someone like Rapone could possibly graduate.
First and foremost, standards at West Point are nonexistent. They exist
on paper, but nowhere else. The senior administration at West Point
inexplicably refuses to enforce West Point’s publicly touted high
standards on cadets, and, having picked up on this,
cadets refuse to enforce standards on each other. The Superintendent
refuses to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, the
Dean refuses to enforce academic standards, and the Commandant refuses
to enforce standards of conduct and discipline.
The end result is a sort of malaise that pervades the entire
institution. Nothing matters anymore. Cadets know this, and it has given
rise to a level of cadet arrogance and entitlement the likes of which
West Point has never seen in its history.
Every fall, the Superintendent addresses the staff and faculty and lies.
He repeatedly states that “We are going to have winning sports teams
without compromising our standards,” and everyone in Robinson Auditorium
knows he is lying because we routinely admit
athletes with ACT scores in the mid-teens across the board. I have
personally taught cadets who are borderline illiterate and cannot read
simple passages from the assigned textbooks. It is disheartening when
the institution’s most senior leader openly lies
to his own faculty-and they all know it.
The cadet honor code has become a laughingstock. Cadets know they will
not be separated for violating it, and thus they do so on a daily basis.
Moreover, since they refuse to enforce standards on each other and
police their own ranks, cadets will rarely find
a cadet at an honor hearing despite overwhelming evidence that a
violation has occurred. This in tum has caused the staff and faculty to
give up even reporting honor incidents. Why would a staff or faculty
member expend the massive amount of time and energy
it takes to report an honor violation-including writing multiple sworn
statements, giving interviews, and testifying at the honor hearing-when
they know without a doubt the cadet will not be found (or, if found, the
Superintendent will not separate the cadet)?
To make matters worse, the senior leadership at West Point actively
discourages staff and faculty from reporting honor violations. l was
unfortunate enough to experience this first hand during my first tour on
the faculty, when the Commandant of Cadets called
my office phone and proceeded to berate me in the most vulgar and
obscene language for over ten minutes because I had reported a cadet who
lied to me and then asked if “we could just drop it.” Of course, I was
duty bound to report the cadet’s violation, and
I did. During the course of the berating I received from the
Commandant, I never actually found out why he was so angry. It seemed
that he was simply irritated that the institution was having to deal
with the case, and that it was my fault it even existed.
At the honor hearing the next day, I ended up being the one on trial as
my character and reputation were dragged through the mud by the cadet
and her civilian attorney while I sat on the witness stand without any
assistance. In the end, of course, the cadet
was not found (despite having at first admitted that she lied), and she
eventually graduated. Just recently a cadet openly and obviously
plagiarized his History research paper, and his civilian professor
reported it. The evidence was overwhelming-there was
not the slightest question of his guilt, yet the cadet was not found.
The professor, and indeed all the faculty who knew of the case, were
completely demoralized. This is the new norm for the cadet honor system.
In fact, there is now an addition to the honor
system (the Willful Admission Process) which essentially guarantees
that if a cadet admits a violation, then separation is not even a
possibility. In reality, separation is not a possibility anyway because
the Superintendent refuses to impose that sanction.
Academic standards are also nonexistent. I believe this trend started
approximately ten years ago, and it has continued to get worse. West
Point has stated standards for academic expectations and performance,
but they are ignored. Cadets routinely fail multiple
classes and they are not separated at the end-of-semester Academic
Boards. Their professors recommend “Definitely Separate,” but those
recommendations are totally disregarded. I recently taught a cadet who
failed four classes in one semester (including mine),
in addition to several she had failed in previous semesters, and she
was retained at the Academy. As a result, professors have lost hope and
faith in the entire Academic Board process. It has been made clear that
cadets can fail a multitude of classes and
they will not be separated. Instead, when they fail (and they do to a
staggering extent), the Dean simply throws them back into the mix and
expects the faculty to somehow drag them through the academic program
until they manage to earn a passing grade. What
a betrayal this is to the faculty! Also, since they get full grade
replacement if they must retake a course, cadets are actually
incentivized to fail. They know they can re-take the course over the
summer when they have no other competing requirements, and
their new grade completely replaces the failing one. ST AP (Summer Term
Academic Program) is also now an accepted summer detail assignment, so
retaking a course during the summer translates into even more summer
leave for the deficient cadet.
Even the curriculum itself has suffered. The plebe American History
course has been revamped to focus completely on race and on the
narrative that America is founded solely on a history of racial
oppression. Cadets derisively call it the “I Hate America Course.”
Simultaneously, the plebe International History course now focuses on
gender to the exclusion of many other important themes. On the other
hand, an entire semester of military history was recently deleted from
the curriculum (at West Point!). In all courses,
the bar has been lowered to the point where it is irrelevant. If a
cadet fails a course, the instructor is blamed, so instructors are
incentivized to pass everyone. Additionally, instead of responding to
cadet failure with an insistence that cadets rise to
the challenge and meet the standard, the bar for passing the course
itself is simply lowered. This pattern is widespread and pervades every
academic department.
Conduct and disciplinary standards are in perhaps the worst shape of
all. Cadets are jaded, cynical, arrogant, and entitled. They routinely
talk back to and snap at their instructors (military and civilian
alike), challenge authority, and openly refuse to follow
regulations. They are allowed to wear civilian clothes in almost any
arena outside the classroom, and they flaunt that privilege. Some arrive
to class unshaven, in need of haircuts, and with uniforms that look so
ridiculously bad that, at times, I could not
believe I was even looking at a West Point cadet. However, if a staff
or faculty member attempts to correct the cadet in question, that
staff/faculty member is sure to be reprimanded for “harassing cadets.”
For example, as I made my rounds through the barracks
inspecting study conditions one evening as the Academic Officer in
Charge, I encountered a cadet in a company study room. He was wearing a
pair of blue jeans and nothing else, and was covered in tattoos. He had
long hair, was unshaven, and I was honestly unsure
ifhe was even a cadet. He looked more like a prison convict to me. When
I questioned what he was doing there, he remained seated in his chair
and sneered at me that he “was authorized” because he was a First Class
cadet. I proceeded to correct him and then
reported him to the chain of command the next morning. Later that day I
received an email from the Brigade Tactical Officer telling me to “stay
in my lane.” I know many other officers receive the same treatment when
attempting to make corrections. It is extremely
discouraging when the response is invariably one that comes to the
defense of the cadet.
That brings me to another point: cadets’ versions of stories are always
valued more highly by senior leaders than those of commissioned officers
on the staff and faculty. It is as if West Point’s senior leaders
believe their job is to “protect” cadets from
the staff and faculty at all costs. This might explain why the
faculty’s recommendations are ignored at the Academic Boards, why honor
violations are ignored (and commissioned officers are verbally abused
for bringing them to light), and why cadets always
“win” when it comes to conduct and disciplinary issues.
It seems that the Academy’s senior leaders are intimidated by cadets.
During my first tour on the faculty (I was a CPT at the time), I noticed
that 4th class cadets were going on leave in civilian clothes when the
regulation clearly stated they were supposed
to be wearing a uniform. During a discussion about cadet standards
between the BTO and the Dept. of History faculty, I asked why plebes
were going on leave in civilian clothes. His answer astonished me: “That
rule is too hard to enforce.” Yet West Point had
no problem enforcing that rule on me in the mid-1990s. I found it
impossible to believe that the several hundred field grade officers
stationed at West Point could not make teenagers wear the uniform. This
anecdote highlights the fact that West Point’s senior
leaders lack not the ability but the motivation to enforce their will
upon the Corps of Cadets.
This brings me to the case of now-2LT Spenser Rapone. It is not at all
surprising that the Academy turned a blind eye to his behavior and to
his very public hatred of West Point, the Army, and this nation. I knew
at the time I wrote that sworn statement in
2015 that he would go on to graduate. It is not so much that West
Point’s leadership defends his views (Prof. Hosein did, however); it is
that West Point’s senior leaders are infected with apathy: they simply
do not want to deal with any problem, regardless
of how grievous a violation of standards and/or discipline it may be.
They are so reticent to separate problematic cadets (undoubtedly due to
the “developmental model” that now exists at USMA) that someone like
Rapone can easily slip through the cracks. In
other words, West Point’s leaders choose the easier wrong over the
harder right.
I could go on, but I fear that this letter would simply devolve into a
screed, which is not my intention. I will sum up by saying this: a
culture of extreme permissiveness has invaded the Military Academy, and
there seems to be no end to it. Moreover, this
is not unintentional; it is a deliberate action that is being taken by
the Academy’s senior leadership, though they refuse to acknowledge or
explain it. Conduct and behavior that would never be tolerated at a
civilian university is common among cadets, and
it is supported and defended by the Academy’s senior leaders in an
apparent and misguided effort to attract more applicants and cater to
what they see as the unique needs of this generation of cadets.
Our beloved Military Academy has lost its way. It is a shadow of what it
once was. It used to be a place where standards and discipline
mattered, and where concepts like duty, honor, and country were real and
they meant something. Those ideas have been replaced
by extreme permissiveness, rampant dishonesty, and an inexplicable
pursuit of mediocrity. Instead of scrambling to restore West Point to
what it once was, the Academy’s senior leaders give cadets more and more
privileges in a seeming effort to tum the institution
into a third-rate civilian liberal arts college. Unfortunately, they
have largely succeeded. The few remaining members of the staff and
faculty who are still trying to hold the line are routinely berated,
ignored, and ultimately silenced for their unwillingness
to “go along with the program.” The Academy’s senior leaders simply do
not want to hear their voices or their concerns. Dissent is crushed-I
was repeatedly told to keep quiet at faculty meetings, even as a LTC,
because my dissent was neither needed nor appreciated.
It breaks my heart to write this. It breaks my heart to know first-hand
what West Point was versus what it has become. This is not a “Corps has”
story; it is meant to highlight a deliberate and radical series of
changes being undertaken at the highest levels
of USMA’ s leadership that are detrimental to the institution.
Criticizing these changes is not popular. I have already been labeled a
“traitor” by some at the Academy due to my sworn statement’s appearance
in the media circus surrounding Spenser Rapone. However,
whenever I hear this, I am reminded of the Cadet Prayer:
” … suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish.
Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and
never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won. …that
scorns to compromise with vice and injustice, and
knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy.”
West Point was once special, and it can be again. Spenser Rapone never
should have been admitted, much less graduate, but he was-and that
mistake is directly attributable to the culture of permissiveness and
apathy that now exists there.
Sincerely and Respectfully,
Robert M. Heffington
LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), West Point Class of 1997
