A board of U.S. Air Force Academy graduates is to vote Friday on whether to award honorary membership in the academy’s alumni association to Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist killed last month while hosting a debate at a Utah college.
The vote will be held by the board of directors of the Association of Graduates, which serves as the academy’s nonprofit alumni group. In addition to voting on the honorary membership, the board is expected to consider Kirk for an honorary Air Force Academy degree.
Although an honorary degree vote is on the agenda, the Association of Graduates does not have the authority in its bylaws to award one, association staff told Military Times. Instead, the motion recommends the Air Force Academy award it.
It was unclear Thursday whether the academy had the authority to issue honorary degrees. If not, the motion directs the academy to seek the authority to issue them.
Honorary membership into the Association of Graduates is awarded to those who have “rendered outstanding and conspicuous service” to the Air Force or the academy, according to the alumni group.
The board has voted in 47 honorary members since 1981, the most recent being retired Lt. Col. Louis Burkel III, who worked at the academy as a gymnastics coach for more than 30 years. Just prior to Burkel was Chief Master Sgt. Bob Vasquez, who retired as the Cadet Wing’s curriculum branch manager in 2022 after working with cadets for more than 20 years.
For the motion on honorary membership to pass Friday, a minimum of 80% of the board must vote to approve it.
“I can’t think of anyone I have ever met that better exudes all of the qualities of a candidate that we as USAFA graduates would want to count among our numbers than Charlie,” Bishop is quoted as saying in a post Wednesday by Unity Slate. “Faith, family, so much love for our country and the vision of our Founding Fathers — Charlie had it all.”
In an email to its members Wednesday, Unity Slate wrote that some Air Force Academy graduates were opposed to the idea and had contacted Mark Hille, president and CEO of the Association of Graduates, with their concerns.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Marty France is one of the graduates speaking out against it. France is a former board member with the alumni group and the former head of the academy’s Department of Astronautics.
“As a former elected board member of the AOG, graduate, parent of a graduate and long-time faculty member, I know that those previously honored in this manner each served USAFA for decades in a wide variety of roles. I know because I voted on several of these decisions almost 20 years ago,” France said. “Whatever service [Kirk] provided to USAFA does not rise anywhere near what we should require as a minimum before even considering him for such mention.”
President Donald Trump appointed Kirk in March to join the academy’s board of visitors, a group that meets several times a year to provide nonbinding advice on issues including curriculum, student morale, academic methods and the needs of the institution, such as equipment and funding.
Kirk’s appointment came after Trump fired the board of visitors at the Air Force Academy, as well as the boards at the Military Academy, Naval Academy and Coast Guard Academy, claiming they had been “infiltrated by woke leftist ideologies.”
Kirk, co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, attended one board of visitors meeting Aug. 7 before he was assassinated at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
According to the official minutes from the Aug. 7 meeting, Kirk asked Air Force Academy staff to explain how they were following directives from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Kirk said he wanted to ensure the faculty “doesn’t push the worldview of oppression, oppressor/oppressed dynamics, anti-western, anti-American, and gender ideology,” the meeting minutes read.
The academy was directed in April to review its library for anything related to DEI, gender ideology and critical race theory. In May, Hegseth barred the military service academies from considering race, gender or ethnicity in admissions.
Kirk also pushed for the faster completion of an extensive restoration of the academy’s cadet chapel. Renovations began in 2019 and are expected to be complete in 2028.
In closing remarks, Kirk urged the academy to focus its curriculum on teaching cadets the idea of American exceptionalism.
“It’s one thing to strip away the DEI, the critical race theory — of which we’re going to be continually, politely bothering you on with questions — but also we want to make sure that someone over the course of four years, they can articulate and feel within their soul American exceptionalism, what they’re willing to die for, what is that Constitution they’re swearing an oath to,” Kirk said.
“It’s imperative that these cadets know that we are the greatest nation ever … not ever any sort of question about that.”
Friday’s vote follows another honor presented to Kirk this week. On Tuesday, which would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday, Trump posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor.
Nikki Wentling is a senior editor at Military Times. She’s reported on veterans and military communities for nearly a decade and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.
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