West Point Association of Graduates Cancels Award Ceremony Intended to Honor Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

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The West Point Association of Graduates has canceled an award ceremony intended to honor two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks, according to the Washington Post. The move comes as President Donald Trump has continued to intervene with Ivy League institutions and military academies across the nation.

West Point Association of Graduates President and CEO Mark Bieger announced the cancellation in a faculty email on Friday, claiming the decision will better enable West Point to “focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army.”

 

Reps for the West Point Association of Graduates did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment. Reps for Hanks also did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.

 

Hanks was set to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award on Sept. 25. The award is meant to celebrate an “outstanding citizen” outside of the West Point organization with a history of social service that exemplifies “Duty, Honor, Country,” the academy’s three core ideals.

Bieger said that the West Point Association of Graduates and the academy “will not be holding the Thayer Award ceremony,” and did not clarify if the award will still be presented to Hanks in another forum or if the award had been revoked altogether.

Trump has taken an acute interest in putting his stamp on the country’s top academic institutions during his second term, West Point included. Following an executive order in January promising to overhaul the “leadership, curriculum, and instructors” at the nation’s top military academies, the Trump administration wielded a red pen to West Point’s curriculum.

 

The Pentagon also reinserted a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee into the West Point library in late August, according to the New York Times. In light of the decision, the Army’s communications director, Rebecca Hodson, said, “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”