West Point Fired Its Only Climate Scientist for Teaching Human-Caused Climate Change, Lawsuit Says
Dr. Adam Kalkstein, a civilian professor of geography at the US Military Academy and the only climate scientist on West Point's faculty, was fired after resisting an order to stop teaching cadets that humans contribute to the climate emergency, according to a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (Spectrum News).
The complaint accuses West Point of violating Kalkstein's First Amendment rights and alleges that department officials barred faculty from teaching that humans contribute to climate change (Stars and Stripes). Kalkstein had taught army cadets at West Point for 17 years. The case was reported on August 26, 2026 by Stars and Stripes and the New York Times, with further detail published by the Guardian on August 27 (The Guardian).
To understand the stakes, it helps to know what the First Amendment protects in this context. The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and courts have long held that government employees retain some speech protections, especially on matters of public concern. But those protections are weaker inside military institutions, where the government's interest in discipline and internal messaging carries considerable weight.
The lawsuit traces the conflict to May 2025, when West Point leaders announced plans to reduce civilian staffing levels while simultaneously opening a new humanities center that would require new geography teachers. Kalkstein was offered the option to stay on as a "term employee," which he accepted at the cost of his tenure and a substantial severance package. Then, in September 2025, the order came down to ban teaching about human contributions to climate change.
What followed was a November 2025 meeting between Kalkstein and Brig Gen Shane Reeves, then dean of West Point's academic board. Kalkstein told Reeves that the directive to cut climate curriculum content was immoral and potentially illegal. He likened the prohibition to "trying to teach the law without being able to even mention the constitution." According to the lawsuit, Reeves responded by telling Kalkstein that Donald Trump was commander in chief and set the agenda for West Point, then "stormed out" of the meeting. Kalkstein was terminated after the spring 2026 semester, roughly six months after that confrontation.
Kalkstein's attorney, Michael Sussman, has emphasized that his client is a conservative Republican who believes military students need to understand the actual causes of the climate crisis as a matter of national security. Kalkstein holds expertise in hazards, human health, and human-environment interactions, with 16 years in physical geography and climatology. He chairs the Regional Expertise chair in the academy's Center for Languages, Cultures, and Regional Studies.
This is the second legal action over academic freedom at West Point. Tim Bakken, the academy's longest-serving law professor, filed a separate lawsuit after opposing a Trump administration policy requiring civilian faculty to seek approval before publishing papers or giving speeches. Bakken alleges that during a meeting with Colonel John Gregory, he was told to "stop talking and sit down" before a gathering of dozens of faculty members, with Gregory adding, "We're a military institution. We follow orders." The US Military Academy later dropped its challenge to a preliminary injunction that Bakken's lawyers had obtained, and the parties agreed "in principle" to work toward a permanent solution.
A preliminary injunction is a court order that temporarily stops a policy from being enforced while a case proceeds. The fact that West Point chose not to contest it suggests the academy recognized some legal vulnerability, though the agreement to work toward a permanent solution leaves the underlying policy questions unanswered.
The broader context here is the tension between two different worlds operating under one roof. West Point's faculty includes both civilian professors and military officers, and the academy's dual identity has long created friction over questions of academic freedom, intellectual independence, and the chain of command. The Kalkstein case adds a sharper edge: whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change can be treated as a curriculum question subject to political direction, or whether suppressing it constitutes a constitutional violation for civilian faculty.
The Department of Defense has identified climate change as a national security threat in multiple strategic documents over the past decade, citing risks to military installations, supply chains, and operational environments. Kalkstein's framing of climate science as essential to military preparedness positions the curriculum dispute not merely as an academic-freedom question but as one with direct implications for how future officers are trained to assess the environments in which they will operate.
Both lawsuits remain pending. Kalkstein's First Amendment claim will turn in part on how courts weigh the speech rights of civilian employees at a military institution against the government's interest in controlling its own internal messaging. For Bakken's case, the path forward is less adversarial for now, with the academy having stepped back from contesting the injunction. But the agreed "in principle" framework leaves the underlying policy questions unresolved.
