Documents Detail West Point Cover-Up of Removal of ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ from Mission Statement

Last year the U.S. Military Academy at West Point under President Biden removed the words “Duty, Honor and Country” from its mission statement, and in doing so it demonstrated a total lack of honor.

Judicial Watch received 445 pages of records from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point revealing that speakers at the March 2024 “Founders Day” event were instructed to “AVOID saying ‘removed,’ ‘replaced,’ ‘deleted’ [when referring to the new mission statement] – just refer to the ‘updated mission statement and reinforce that the motto remains unchanged.” [Emphasis in original] The records also tie DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) efforts to the mission statement controversy.

These records detail how the DEI agenda helped change the mission statement of West Point – and how leadership under the Biden administration tried to cover it up.

In a March 12, 2024, “Message from the 61st Superintendent,” Superintendent LTG Steven Gilland announced the change, referencing the Army’s continued commitment to “Duty, Honor and Country” and then announced the new mission statement without explaining why the words themselves were deleted.

The records were produced in our June 2024 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed when West Point failed to respond to a March 2024 FOIA request (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:24-cv-01757)). Judicial Watch is asking for:

• All documents which form the basis upon which the decision was made to remove the phrase “Duty, Honor, Country” from the United States Military Academy Mission Statement, according to various reports (such as https://armedforces.press/report-west-point-to-remove-duty-honor-country-from-official-mission-statement/).
• All emails between the following USMA officials and other email accounts ending in .mil or .gov regarding the removal of “Duty, Honor, Country” from the USMA Mission Statement: Superintendent LTG Steve Gilland, MG Lori Robinson, and BG Shane Reeves.

The records include a March 23, 2024, email from Gilland to LTG Christopher Donahue regarding “Founders Day Speaker Talking Points and FAQs” with four attachments, one of which states:

Our motto is who we are. Our mission statement is what we do.

• Duty, Honor, Country is carved in granite across West Point, adorns our cadets’ uniforms, and will always remain our motto.
• The mission statement codifies our mission essential tasks: build, educate, train and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character.
• The revised mission statement was approved by—but not directed by—the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff.
• AVOID saying “removed,” “replaced,” “deleted”— just refer to the “updated mission statement and reinforce that the motto remains unchanged.” [Emphasis in original]

In the “FAQ” attachment is an explanation regarding “DEI in Curriculum:”

• USMA [U.S. Military Academy] does not have a core curriculum dedicated to Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is explicitly covered in one upper-level elective - The Politics of Race, Gender, and Sexuality. Out of 30 lessons, there is one lesson introducing CRT and another focusing on critiques of CRT.
• USMA has a Diversity and Inclusion Studies Minor (DISM); created in 2017. Five to eight students each year complete the minor.

The “FAQ” attachment’s “Diversity Conference” section details:

• USMS’s Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Conference, as with all USMA conferences, encourages participants to present alternative viewpoints and challenge assumptions. This aligns with our mission to develop leaders of character who are mentally agile, perspective-laden critical thinkers.
  • In other words, our goal is to teach Cadets HOW to think, not WHAT to think. [Emphasis in original]

An additional bullet in the document under the heading “NDAA” (National Defense Authorization Act) reads:

• We are working in coordination with HQDA [Headquarters, Department of the Army] to comply with DEI-related provisions of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act that relate to USMA.

A November 2023 “Memorandum for Superintendent, USMA [U.S. Military Academy]” is intended for Gilland and addresses a “requested change for USMA [U.S. Military Academy] Mission” from its current reading to a revised form that is fully redacted:

Current:

To educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a 4 [sic] leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army.

Revised:

[Redacted]

Under the heading “Rationale for USMA [U.S. Military Academy]” Mission key edits” the memorandum instructs:

Substitute “Army Values” for “Duty, Honor Country.” We expect leaders of character to demonstrate all seven Army values. This change strengthens our connection to the Army. We will retain Duty, Honor, Country as the USMA [U.S. Military Academy] Motto.

In a March 11, 2024, email from Gilland to members of the West Point Board of Visitors, Gilland characterizes the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates as “a small but vocal group of Academy alumni who criticize the Academy on our continued transformation efforts.”

In a March 28, 2023, PowerPoint presentation for a West Point Board of Visitors meeting, in a slide titled “Focus Areas,” under the subtitle “Army Lines of Effort,” is a bullet “Development and implementation of a DEI Plan informed by the current D&I [Diversity and Inclusion] Plan (Middle States Association).”

In a July 27, 2023, U.S. Military Academy Board of Directors PowerPoint presentation, the one slide contains the bullet “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at USMA.”

Judicial Watch is pushing relentlessly in federal court for the full truth on the Biden’s regime war on traditional military values. 

In November 2024, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense for information regarding the rebranding of West Point’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) office to “Office of Engagement and Retention.”

In March 2023, records from the U.S. Department of Defense showed the U.S. Air Force Academy had made race and gender instruction a top priority in the training of cadets.

In July 2023, we exposed records from the United States Air Force Academy, a component of the United States Department of Defense, which included instructional materials and emails that addressed topics such as Critical Race Theory, “white privilege,” and Black Lives Matter.

 In June 2022, we exposed Critical Race Theory (CRT) instruction at the U.S. Military Academy. One training slide contained a graphic titled “MODERN-DAY SLAVERY IN THE USA.” [Emphasis in original]

National Archives Tells Court It Can’t Predict Release of JFK Assassination Records 

The wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly.

In a report to the court the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) stated it “cannot fully predict” when records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy will be released. The National Archives estimates that there are “over six million pages” of records responsive to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

We filed the February 2025 lawsuit after the National Archives failed to respond to a January 20, 2025, FOIA request (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. National Archives and Records Administration (1:25-cv-00577)). We sued for:

All previously unreleased records in the possession of the National Archives and Records Administration regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This request includes, but is not limited to, all records transferred to NARA by the Assassination Records Review Board.

The National Archives states in a “joint status report” to the court:

[National Archives] cannot fully predict when records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request will be released online because of the volume of material, the complexity of the digitization process, and the remaining restrictions on access such as grand jury and court sealed information, taxpayer information protected by 26 U.S.C. § 6103, deeded materials, and intellectual property. [National Archives] will continue to work diligently to process [Judicial Watch’s] request and post records online on a rolling basis.

Additionally, fulfilling [Judicial Watch’s] request for records of the ARRB [Assassination Records Review Board] itself will be labor intensive. The [Assassination Records Review Board] records are part of the JFK Collection but do not meet the definition of an “assassination record” within the statute…. These records, which have not previously been fully reviewed for public release, must be digitized and reviewed line-by-line for FOIA exemptions.

The National Archives and we propose updating the court as to the status of the processing of records on or before July 28, 2025.

On January 19, 2025, then President-Elect Donald Trump announced his intention to make public the “remaining records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.” On January 23, an executive order was issued to that effect:

More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events. Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.

The National Archives claims that since January 23, 2025, it has posted approximately 80,000 pages of responsive records online

The National Archives needs to speed this up. At this rate, it will be decades before the files are made available to the American people.

We have several FOIA cases pending against the National Archives.

In January 2024, a FOIA lawsuit uncovered records from the National Archives that showed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s use of an email alias to correspond with family members, including son Hunter and brother James; and that Joe Biden signed off on the cessation of Secret Service protection for Hunter Biden and Beau Biden’s daughter Natalie during an August 2016 trip to Kosovo.

In August 2023, we sued the National Archives for records of its role in President Trump’s White House records controversy; whether it offered Trump a secure storage location other than the National Archives; and if the Archives consulted with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence regarding the classification or declassification procedures of any of the alleged classified documents found at Trump’s Florida residence.

In August 2022, we uncovered that, as of March 31, the National Archives had released only 1,276 pages of over 8,000 records about the unprecedented document dispute and raid on the home of former President Trump. Click here or here to review the records.

In October 2022, we sued the Barack Obama Presidential Library for Obama White House records about the 2016 “Russia Collusion Hoax.” The records, which by law were not available under FOIA until five years after President Obama left office, are held at the library, which is part of the National Archives system.

Operation Take Back America: Thousands of Illegals Charged Since March

For years, we have reported on crimes committed by illegal aliens. Now, the Trump administration is taking historic steps to protect the public from these dangerous criminals, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.

With the southern border finally secured and illegal immigration at an all-time low, the Trump administration is cracking down on criminal aliens welcomed into the United States by the Biden administration, charging thousands with crimes including over 1,300 this month alone. Besides facing allegations of illegally reentering the country, many of those charged have felony convictions involving narcotics, firearms, and sexual offenses. It is part of the Trump administration’s Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative launched in March to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, eliminate drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect American communities from perpetrators of violent crime. Under the initiative the Department of Justice (DOJ) empowers prosecutors and law enforcement officials around the country to protect their communities from ongoing threats by charging the most serious, readily provable offenses.

Just a few months after its creation, the operation is proving to be quite effective with federal prosecutors in southwestern border districts charging over 6,000 illegal immigrants with crimes. In the last week of April federal prosecutors in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas charged nearly 1,000 defendants with criminal violations of U.S. immigration laws. More than half of the cases were handled in Texas where hundreds of the migrants charged for illegally reentering the U.S. had felony convictions for crimes involving drugs, firearms, and sexual offenses. Among them is a previously deported Mexican national with a federal drug trafficking conviction and a Honduran migrant convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to five years in prison. In Arizona 11 individuals had charges for smuggling illegal aliens and in California over 100 were charged with transportation of illegal immigrants for financial gain and importation of controlled substances as well as committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14.

In the first week of May alone, over 1,300 criminal aliens were charged under the initiative with Texas U.S. Attorneys again leading the way. The majority of the 608 cases filed by federal prosecutors in the Lone Star State that week also involved suspects with prior felony convictions for narcotics, firearms, sexual or violent offenses prior to immigration crimes. More than a dozen committed human smuggling crimes and at least two men from Venezuela—home of the deadly Tren de Aragua gang—got charged with illegally possessing a firearm. In Arizona two dozen individuals were charged with smuggling illegal immigrants and in California hundreds of criminal aliens were charged with human smuggling, assault on a federal officer, drug smuggling—including nearly 300 pounds of methamphetamine—burglary and forgery. The central district of California, which includes Los Angeles, has seen a 3,755% increase in illegal immigrants charged with reentering the United States after being deported since Trump took office in January. “The defendants charged were previously convicted of felonies before they were removed from the United States,” according to the DOJ.

This week the agency announced that 18 additional migrants were charged with various crimes including straw purchasing of firearms, bank robbery, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm by an illegal alien and illegal reentry under Operation Take Back America. The perpetrators include a previously deported Mexican charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by an alien as well as illegal reentry into the U.S., two Honduran men charged with illegally possessing firearms and a Mexican man who has been deported three times charged with illegally reentering the U.S. Authorities are not just randomly plucking migrants off the streets as the left claims. They are strictly focusing on those with criminal histories. “Operation Take Back America will also include all efforts to target TdA [Tren de Aragua], MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Northeast Cartel (Los Zetas), New Michoacan Family, United Cartels, the Gulf Cartel, and any other Cartel,” according to the memo that launched the initiative in early March.

Until next week,