Military kids will learn Western civ and patriotism in DoD class

Patriotic values will be taught in schools run by the military, says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. (That's not a shocker.) He also wants the school system, which serves children of active-duty military members, to stress classical education.

A new online class on Western civilization will use a textbook on "the ancient world and Christendom," report AP's Annie Ma and Konstantin Toropin. The DoD class may use lesson plans created in partnership with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school.

"While some classical educators have pushed to incorporate diverse scholars, critics have argued the movement focuses too heavily on foundational texts from Greek, Roman and other Western writers and gives short shrift to achievements in Asia, Africa and the Middle East," they write.

It appears that learning the classics is now coded as conservative.

“You’ve got to wonder a bit whether Western civilization is a Trojan horse for classical Christian education,” said Phil Gorski, a historical sociology professor at Yale.

Critics say the textbook describes early Christianity as humane, and Islam as violent. The description of the Crusades and of conflicts with the Islamic world lacks context and is biased, said Matthew Gabriele, a Virginia Tech history and religion professor.

One of the book’s co-authors, Harvard emeritus professor James Hankins, said the text distinguishes between Christianity and Western civilization, and discusses the "West’s cultural debts to the Islamic world," Ma and Toropin write. Hankins now teaches at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, a conservative-backed project, they note.

Other countries, such as China, study their own civilization, Hankins told the AP reporters. “Abandoning it has been foolish in my view, and is one cause of the growing cultural disorientation of the last couple of generations."

"Red states," notably Florida, are trimming the list of general-education courses that meet graduation requirements, writes Ryan Quinn on Inside Higher Ed. The effort has "put a greater focus on Western civilization and civics while sidelining courses focused on diversity and social justice."

Florida universities cut gen-ed courses by nearly 60 percent, according to the Manhattan Institute’s Correcting the Core report. The flagship University of Florida went from 1,200 gen-ed courses to fewer than 300.

“Departments that are particular hotbeds for activism and controversy were most likely to have their classes removed from the general education list” at the University of Florida, the report stated. “For example, none of the women’s studies courses qualified for general education status in the 2025–26 academic year. Other courses that were removed because of the state’s revised standards included ‘Be a Social Justice Activist: #Activism, Intersectionality, and Social Movement Organizing,’ ‘Latin American and US Latinx Theatre,’ and ‘Diversity and Inclusion in Sports Organizations.’”

Courses dropped from the general-ed list remain as electives -- until enrollment plummets. Then they're gone.

The University of Texas at Austin plans to focus its core curriculum on "Western civilization, great questions of human life, the principles of American politics, world politics and cultures, great ideas in science and computer science and artificial intelligence," reports Jessica Priest in the Texas Tribune.

The proposal reduces core requirements from 42 to 36 credit hours.

The current core is a “haphazard grab bag of classes,” UT President Jim Davis told the Regents. For example, a student could fill half his U.S. history requirement with a course on the history of college football.