USCGA · Academic Freedom
Semper Paratus —
Not Censored Classrooms
Maybe you think “climate change” is overstated. Maybe you’ve looked at the data and you’re not convinced.
Good. That’s what science is for. Arguing, testing, disproving.
That’s exactly why a scientific institution should be free to use the term: so it can be studied, tested, and if the skeptics are right, disproven in the open. Banning the words doesn’t settle the argument. It just makes sure nobody gets to have it.
What actually happened
On February 14, 2025, then–DHS Secretary Kristi Noem directed the Department of Homeland Security, including the Coast Guard, to “eliminate all climate change activities and the use of climate change terminology” in its policies and programs.
The Academy’s provost then directed faculty to revise course content, with guidance that the Academy would not use “climate change” or related terminology in class assignments and materials.
This isn’t about climate policy. It’s about what a science school is allowed to discuss.
Every CGA graduate earns a Bachelor of Science. The Academy runs the Center for Arctic Study and Policy, a mission that requires being able to discuss the Arctic’s changing conditions. You can’t staff that mission, or grant that degree with a straight face, while banning a term from its coursework.
What retired senior officers are saying
This isn’t outside advocacy. It’s coming from inside the sea services.
Former Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft has publicly criticized the ban on operational grounds. Future officers face rising seas, stronger storms, and Arctic operations, and if they aren’t smart about the environment they operate in, Zukunft warned, the result is “a much less capable Coast Guard” (Inside Climate News, March 2025).
Writing in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (June 2026), retired Navy Captain Roger Herbert, a former ethics professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, argued that academic freedom is a national security imperative. Intellectual diversity strengthens readiness, not weakens it.
Why alumni say this matters beyond one topic
There’s no such thing as narrowly-scoped academic censorship. Once an institution accepts that a directive can remove one subject from its curriculum, there’s no principled line stopping the next one.