West Point will disband all its cultural clubs, including those for women and minorities, according to a memo from the Corps of Cadets in response to presidential executive orders and Army guidance that NBC News obtained.
Aside from disbanding all the cultural clubs, the memo -- which was sent out Tuesday -- also says that the clubs cannot continue informal activities.
The memo reads in part:
"Effective immediately, all Directorate of Cadet Activities (DCA) sanctioned clubs listed below are hereby disbanded. This directive cancels all trip sections, meetings, events, and other activities associated with these clubs. Moreover, these clubs are not authorized to continue informal activities using Government time, resources, or facilities:
The following clubs are hereby disbanded:
- Asian-Pacific Forum Club
- Contemporary Cultural Affairs Seminar Club
- Corbin Forum
- Japanese Forum Club
- Korean-American Relations Seminar
- Latin Cultural Club
- National Society of Black Engineers Club
- Native American Heritage Forum
- Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers
- Society of Women Engineers Club
- Spectrum
- Vietnamese-American Cadet Association"
The memo also asks all these clubs to "unpublish, deactivate, archive, or otherwise remove all public facing content."
This comes on the heels of President Donald Trump's executive order targeting diversity, equality, inclusion (DEI). DEI focuses on promoting and creating equitable environments in businesses and schools, particularly for historically marginalized communities.
Following his inauguration, Trump signed various executive orders, among them one ending what he described as "radical and wasteful" diversity, equity and inclusion programs inside federal agencies.
The new administration will hold monthly meetings with the deputy secretaries of key agencies to “assess what type of DEI programs are still discriminating against Americans and figure out ways to end them,” on official of the Trump Administration said following Trump's executive order, adding that the new administration intends to “dismantle the DEI bureaucracy,” singling out environmental justice programs and equity-related grants.
The official said it was “very fitting” that the DEI order was announced on Martin Luther King Jr. Day because the "order is meant to return to the promise and the hope, captured by civil rights champions, that one day all Americans can be treated on the basis of their character, not by the color of their skin.”
In recent years, Trump and conservatives have assailed DEI initiatives across American society, characterizing them as discriminatory. Trump has said that his administration would "forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based."
The proponents of DEI in American society have argued that such initiatives are essential to make companies, schools, government agencies and other institutions more racially and socially inclusive.
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s return to power, major corporations, such as Meta, McDonald’s and Walmart, have announced they are ending some or all of their diversity practices.
