President Donald Trump’s executive orders aren’t just shutting down diversity efforts in military academies, experts say — they’re making it harder to access important resources to address sexual assault.
Trump signed an executive order during his second week in office mandating that all branches of the armed forces close “DEI offices” and strip any materials or courses that reference “divisive concepts” and “gender ideology.”
Soon after, the U.S. Navy, Marines and Coast Guard paused sexual assault prevention and response trainings. (Some have restarted trainings; others remain on pause.) Gender and sexuality classes at service academies were canceled. Student affinity groups and clubs, including those for women and people of color, were forced to shut down.
On the whole, experts said the orders make it harder for service members and students to access information about reporting, coping with and receiving support after sexual assault.
“We’re looking at an erosion of truth about sexual assault, about trying to even address it or act like it’s a problem,” Stephanie Bonnes, an expert on sexual assault and discrimination in the U.S. military, told NOTUS.
Sexual assault and prevention training is required by law for new service members, students at military academies and others involved in the armed forces. It’s among several steps meant to increase safety for service members, and there has been some progress: Military service academies recently reported a drop in the number of reported sexual assaults.
But abuse is still prevalent. About 13% of women and 3.6% of men said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact in the 2024 school year, according to an annual survey. And experts warned that the latest changes at academies could derail the progress made toward addressing sexual harassment and violence.
“We spent a lot of time at West Point talking about bystanders and how bystanders can intervene and how bystanders can be empowered … that’s what you put at risk when you stop doing the training,” Diane Ryan, a retired 29-year U.S. Army officer and former professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told NOTUS.
“What we’re going to see are the numbers going down, and that’s not because of fewer incidents,” she continued. “I think it’s, people are going to be afraid of reporting for retribution.”
Even a temporary pause in sexual assault prevention and response training is “setting the tone that the acceptable behaviors have changed,” said Elisa Cardnell, a veteran and the president of the Service Women’s Action Network, an organization that advocates for women service members and veterans.
Earlier this month, House Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding answers and questioning why the executive orders led to the pause.
“Training programs are not optional — they are a fundamental tool in prevention, accountability and shifting the toxic norms that have allowed these crimes to persist. Pausing or delaying the training undermines progress and puts more service members at risk,” the lawmakers’ letter said.
A Department of Defense spokesperson told NOTUS that “sexual assault prevention and response programs and policies remain in place. The Executive Orders did not require changes or pauses in the [Sexual Assault Prevention and Response] Program’s mission — to provide unparalleled warfighter support, advocacy, and recovery assistance anytime, anywhere.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Marine Corps told NOTUS that it restored sexual assault prevention and response training for service members on Feb. 7, three days after the pause went into effect, and that victim advocacy services and sexual assault prevention and response professionals were available for service members during the pause.
A U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement that the training program for service members is still paused and “undergoing edits to ensure compliance with the President’s Executive Orders.” No other sexual assault resources for service members have been impacted, the spokesperson said.
The U.S. Navy did not respond to questions from NOTUS about the nature of the Navy’s pause.
The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army did not respond to requests for comment on the state of sexual assault prevention and response resources in their respective branches.
Spokespeople for the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy told NOTUS that sexual harassment and assault prevention training at the respective academies has not been affected by the executive orders. The Air Force Academy did not answer questions from NOTUS about sexual assault training materials and resources, but said in a statement that it “will fully comply with, and execute all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by our President, and the amplifying guidance from the Department of Defense.”
The Coast Guard Academy and Merchant Marine Academy did not respond to requests for comment from NOTUS.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to walk back some of the steps it’s taken to strip the federal government of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, like canceling “equity-related” federal grants. The judge’s injunction referenced other DEI-related executive orders but did not name the order that primarily targets the armed forces and military academies, or an executive order about “gender ideology” that service academies and armed forces branches have said they’ll comply with. The Department of Defense did not respond to an inquiry from NOTUS about whether the judge’s order would impact how the military and military institutions are responding to Trump’s executive orders.
Experts predicted that Trump’s military and gender executive orders will have other effects. Bonnes added that she expects the military to stop funding some events about sexual assault and harassment prevention — like the academies’ joint annual National Discussion on Sexual Assault, where she was the keynote speaker last year.
The executive orders could also limit data collection on sexual assault and harassment, particularly at service academies, Bonnes said. The Department of Defense runs a sexual assault prevention and response office tasked with data collection and related issues. The office’s creation was the result of bipartisan congressional oversight and pressure in the 2000s, Bonnes said. With a reduced emphasis on sexual assault prevention, its role could fade.
In response to the executive orders, some aspects of the reporting process have already changed, according to the Department of Defense spokesperson, including the types of information students and service members can share about their identity in sexual assault prevention and response materials.
“The Department has been ensuring full compliance by reviewing all policies, programs, and training, revising content to remove references to ‘gender,’ ‘gender identity,’ and ‘gender ideology’ and replacing these terms with ‘sex,’” the spokesperson said in the statement to NOTUS.
While reporting mechanisms for sexual assault and harassment are still intact at the service academies and in the armed forces, the executive order has killed other resources.
The Coast Guard Academy, for instance, shuttered its Office of Culture and Climate — previously its diversity, equity and inclusion office — last month. Among its other tasks, the DEI office previously co-sponsored a survey on sexual assault and other gender relations issues at the academy.
Spaces that students at the military academies turned to for support have also been affected. The order led to the closure of more than 12 extracurricular clubs at West Point and cancellations of gender and sexuality studies classes at some academies.
For people like Ryan, the loss of these resources is concerning. When Ryan was a professor at West Point, she became involved with the Corbin Forum, a campus organization for cadets to discuss gender issues and teach the campus community about serving in the armed forces as a woman.
Now, in response to Trump’s executive order, the Corbin Forum no longer exists.
“If they don’t have those opportunities, they’re going to show up like I did to my unit, just not knowing things that might have been helpful to know,” Ryan said.
New York state Sen. James Skoufis, whose district includes the U.S. Military Academy, said he isn’t surprised by some of these impacts, including barriers to sexual assault prevention and response.
“The intended consequences are generally pretty terrible themselves,” he told NOTUS. “But the fact that there are unintended, awful consequences, it’s what happens when they take a flamethrower into a kitchen.”
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Shifra Dayak is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.