Republished with permission by the Laramie Reporter.
A federal lawsuit alleges University of Wyoming (UW) President Shane Reeves suppressed a professor’s free speech rights at the United States Military Academy at West Point while enforcing President Trump’s opposition to mainstream climate science.
Before taking the helm of Wyoming’s state university in July, Reeves was the dean of the Academic Board at West Point, a role overseeing all of the institution’s academic programs.
In a lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Adam Kalkstein alleges he was demoted from his tenured professorship, then let go the following year, for pushing back on directives not to offer instruction on the human causes of climate change.
“The content-based prohibition on plaintiff’s classroom speech serves one purpose: to chill and suppress speech and censor viewpoints contrary to those of the academy, the defendants, the Department of Defense and its leader and the President of the United States,” the federal suit alleges.
The lawsuit was first covered by Stars and Stripes and The New York Times, the latter of which mentioned Reeves but did not highlight his new role at the University of Wyoming.
The president’s office declined to comment for this story, directing The Laramie Reporter to West Point for any questions regarding the lawsuit. The West Point Media Relations Office stated the academy “is aware of the lawsuit and takes all such matters seriously” but “will not comment further on the allegations contained in the public court filings at this time.”
Campus connection
Donal O’Toole, a retired UW professor, shared the Times article on a faculty list-serv this week, calling attention to the lawsuit.
O’Toole told the Reporter he’s worried about what Reeves’ alleged past actions could mean for UW’s atmospheric sciences department and others.
“If that policy that Shane Reeves was attempting to put in place in West Point is put in place here, it’s going to derail some research,” O’Toole said. “And obviously there are different motives for doing it in West Point. But this is an energy state, and if pressure comes on the university to — let’s say — go easy on climate research, it’s got academic freedom implications.”
Free speech at UW has been a hot topic for years, especially in the wake of right-wing attempts to curtail gender studies, climate education and other areas of inquiry labeled “woke” by federal or state lawmakers.
In 2012, state lawmakers pressured university officials to remove artwork critical of fossil fuels. More recently, and for the past several years, lawmakers have attacked or banned gender studies courses, diversity-oriented summer camps, and conferences aimed at women in STEM or Latina youth. During the most recent legislative session, right-wing lawmakers took aim at “ecofeminism” and other environmental courses, citing their existence as justification for an attempted gutting of the university’s state dollars.
This summer, Ed Seidel stepped down as UW’s president after six years in Old Main. Shane Reeves was announced as his replacement, and became UW’s 29th president July 1. Reeves was raised in Wyoming and graduated from Rock Springs High School.
“When I heard that the decision was made to go for a Wyoming boy who comes from a military background, I thought, ‘Well, this will be a very interesting experiment,’ because … at a national level, the folks who sometimes stand up and take the risk are folks in the military,” O’Toole said. “And I thought, ‘Well, maybe we’ll see an example of that here.”
O’Toole said he had heard very little about Reeves’ time at West Point before reading about the lawsuit in the national press.
Kalkstein’s lawsuit
According to the lawsuit, Adam Kalkstein taught at West Point for 17 years, serving as the military academy’s only climate scientist. The lawsuit states he received high marks on performance evaluations and brought in significant amounts of grant funding.
In May 2025, Kalkstein, a civilian, was informed that his position was being terminated as part of a reduction in force. According to the suit, he was one of just two civilians losing their role, and that this came at a time when the military academy was establishing a new Center for the Humanities and was actively seeking civilian geography instructors.
Yet, Kalkstein remained at the academy as a “term employee,” supported entirely by grant funding, according to the suit.
The complaint alleges Kalkstein and the rest of the geography department were directed not to teach about the anthropogenic causes of climate change because they were “contrary to the ideology of the Commander in Chief and forbidden at West Point.”
The suit alleges that during an emergency meeting last September, Kalkstein’s supervisor relayed “this verbal order, but also a clear threat that if anyone went to the media, politicians, etc., the entire department would likely be dissolved.”
Out of concern for his colleagues, Kalkstein obeyed and removed mentions of anthropogenic climate change from his climatology curriculum, according to his lawsuit.
As Dean of the Academic Board, Reeves was the supervisor of Kalkstein’s district supervisor. The suit details the professor’s alleged and unsuccessful attempts to gain a meeting with Reeves himself.
The suit recounts a later November meeting of the geography department attended personally by Reeves. After presenting on their work, Kalkstein raised the issue of the new directive. According to the complaint:
- Plaintiff stated, ‘I just got out of Climatology class and it’s a struggle. It’s not a college-level course. It’s not even a high school course. Not because it isn’t rigorous; it is. But because we’re leaving [out] essential information. We’re only telling cadets part of the story. We’re lying to them, deceiving them. It would be like trying to teach the law without being able to mention the Constitution. The guiding principle of any school should be to the truth … I’m supposed to be an educator and a scientist upholding Army values, but sir, right now, I’m a liar and a fraud. What we’re doing here is wrong. It’s immoral. It’s likely illegal …’
- The Dean responded angrily, querying who set the agenda for West Point.
- Plaintiff noted that the Commander in Chief did [but he] needed to act within the Constitution.
- Defendant Reeves suggested that plaintiff resign from his position.
- Plaintiff indicated that his personal responsibilities precluded that.
- Continuing to yell, Defendant Reeves stated that he had seen enough and stormed out of the meeting, again threatening the entire Department if its members did not comply.
In what came as a “total surprise” to Kalkstein, according to his suit, the professor was informed in May that his contract would not be extended despite the grant funding in place to support it.
Kalkstein alleges that his removal was retaliation for objecting to the new rule regarding climate science education and was therefore a violation of his free speech rights.
The suit asks the court to reinstate his position, to award damages and legal fees, and to block West Point “from imposing or enforcing baseless restrictions on academic freedom and the capacity of a professor to fairly represent the state of scientific research and knowledge.”
Academic freedom
Kalkstein’s suit references an earlier lawsuit involving free speech rights at West Point that also names Reeves as a defendant.
In that case, the court ruled that West Point could not enforce a policy it had implemented requiring civilian faculty to get preapproval for speech outside the classroom. It also ruled West Point could not limit the sharing of civilian viewpoints within classrooms.
Reporting by Inside Higher Ed notes that during a September 2025 address, Reeves “told faculty that they shouldn’t ‘advocate for a particular position or ideology’ in the classroom,” which served as one of the inciting incidents for that lawsuit.
But Judge Cathy Seidel wrote this could not be enforced.
“For genuine strength and leadership to result, cadets must be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and trained to think critically about them,” she writes in the ruling. “West Point cadets are already, by definition, smart, tough and patriotic. They are not snowflakes who will somehow be harmed by learning about controversial issues or competing viewpoints.”
Reeves’ predecessor in Old Main, former UW President Ed Seidel, oversaw the institution’s revamp of its free speech policies.
He was fond of saying UW strives for “inquiry not advocacy,” though the line between those concepts was challenged in the wake of high-profile campus incidents involving free and hate speech.
O’Toole said a strong prohibition on professors sharing any opinions in the classroom “really limits the fluidity of dialogue with students.”
“If we’re just supposed to kind of teach the topic, it begs the question: What happens when you come upon topics that are controversial or a matter of dispute?” he said. “I think it’s important that professors express their opinion if they’re asked — without making a dog’s dinner out of it — on controversial subjects in the classroom, and the students can take it or leave it. It’s part of the value that the professor brings to the classroom.”
West Point, Reeves and the other named defendants have yet to file a response to Kalkstein’s lawsuit.
