The only climate scientist teaching at West Point, the US army’s military academy, was fired after he resisted an order to stop teaching about the human causes of the climate emergency, a lawsuit claims.
Dr Adam Kalkstein, a civilian professor of geography at the New York institution, was terminated after the spring semester this year, six months after a testy meeting with Brig Gen Shane Reeves, then dean of West Point’s academic board, the court filing said.
According to Kalkstein, who taught army cadets there for 17 years, he told the dean at a November 2025 meeting that an order to cut from the curriculum content about the human causes of climate change was immoral and potentially illegal.
It “would be like trying to teach the law without being able to even mention the constitution,” he said.
Reeves responded by “storming out” of the meeting after telling Kalkstein that Donald Trump was commander in chief, and set the agenda for West Point, the lawsuit alleged.
The developments were reported on Wednesday by Stars and Stripes, and the New York Times.
Kalkstein’s lawsuit is the second legal action over the stifling of academic freedoms filed by an educator at West Point.
Tim Bakken, the academy’s longest-serving law professor, had a similarly fiery meeting with a uniformed colonel, John Gregory, last year after standing up to a new Trump administration policy ordering civilian colleagues to seek approval before publishing papers or giving speeches, the Washington Post reported in July.
According to Bakken’s lawsuit, Gregory ordered him to “stop talking and sit down” during a meeting of dozens of faculty members. “We’re a military institution. We follow orders,” Gregory is alleged to have said.
The US Military Academy, West Point’s formal name, dropped its challenge to a preliminary injunction against the policy obtained by Bakken’s lawyers this month, military.com reported, and the parties have agreed “in principle” to work towards a permanent solution.
Kalkstein’s attorney, Michael Sussman, told the Times that his client is a conservative Republican who believes military students need to know the truth about the causes of the climate crisis as a matter of national security.
“He is loyal to the cadets and the academy,” he said. “And to his perspective, edicts that he can’t say what’s true in a classroom is beyond his tolerance and totally counterproductive.”
In further comments to Stars and Stripes, Sussman said Kalkstein’s position was not ideological. “There are certainly people who, anything Donald Trump does, they want to complain about it and scream and yell about it. He’s not that guy,” Sussman said.
The lawsuit alleges that Kalkstein first became aware his position was under threat in May 2025, when West Point leaders announced plans to reduce civilian staffing levels, while at the same time opening a new humanities center requiring new geography teachers.
They offered to let him stay as a “term employee”, Stars and Stripes said, and Kalkstein, fearful that colleagues would have to pick up his classes if he quit, accepted a loss of tenure and entitlement to a large severance package to stay.
The order to ban teaching about human contributions to climate change came in September, the lawsuit said, followed by the angry meeting with Reeves a month later. Reeves retired in April after a 30-year military career and is now president of the University of Wyoming’s board of trustees.
Kalkstein’s lawsuit, filed in US district court for the southern district of New York, accuses West Point of breaching his first amendment rights to free speech.
In a statement to the Guardian, the academy said it was “aware of the allegations and take[s] such matters seriously”, but declined further comment citing pending litigation.
The Guardian has also reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump has flipped between calling the climate emergency “a hoax” or “a scam”, to admitting it exists but insisting that climate scientists are politically motivated and that the climate “will change back”.
Since taking office for a second time last year he has also attempted to impose numerous cultural changes on US military institutions.
In April last year, Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, to purge books found to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), resulting in almost 400 being removed after review. The books were returned a month later after the Pentagon reversed course.
