President Donald Trump announced Monday morning he is dismissing the boards that advise military academies, including the Air Force Academy.
The Air Force Academy’s Board of Visitors has met twice a year in recent years and worked on issues such as sexual assault prevention and educating Air Force officers to lead in large-scale conflict.
The board is charged by charter to provide oversight on morale, discipline, social climate, curriculum, instruction, fiscal affairs and academic methods, among other issues.
Previously, former President Joe Biden removed board members Trump appointed during his first term. For example, Biden removed Kellyanne Conway from Air Force Academy’s board, the Associated Press reported at the time.
The Board of Visitors’ charter disperses responsibilities for appointing members to the board among the president, vice president, speaker of the House of Representatives, and the leaders of House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
Trump has the power to appoint six members of the 15 member board.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social he would replace the board members as part of the mission to strengthen the military.
“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump said Monday.
As of the Air Force Academy’s last board meeting in October, the group included both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, all Democrats, were on the board.
Hickenlooper was appointed by the Senate Armed Services Committee and remains on the board.
The membership also included three Republicans: recently retired Rep. Doug Lamborn, who represented Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, which included Colorado Springs; Sen. Steve Daines of Montana; and Rep. August Pfluger of Texas.
In late January, the Speaker of the House appointed Rep. Jeff Crank, who was elected to Lamborn’s seat, to the Board of Visitors.
Biden’s appointments included retired military members and experts such as Jenna Ben-Yehuda, who was removed as the vice chairwoman. Ben-Yehuda is the executive vice president of The Atlantic Council, a national think tank. She is also a longtime advocate for gender equity, according to a her online biography.
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