{"id":31770,"date":"2019-08-19T21:21:14","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T21:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/08\/19\/controversial-naval-academy-professor-returns-but-not-to-class\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:20:20","slug":"controversial-naval-academy-professor-returns-but-not-to-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/08\/19\/controversial-naval-academy-professor-returns-but-not-to-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial Naval Academy professor returns, but not to class"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ANNAPOLIS, Md. \u2014 As a civilian tenured English professor, Bruce Fleming believes he has made important contributions to the U.S. Naval Academy during his 30 years on staff, providing views from outside the military while teaching writing, literature and critical thinking skills to future Navy and Marine officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleming also hasn\u2019t been afraid to publicly criticize what he perceives as the shortcomings of military academy training \u2014 and that is what he believes ultimately prompted school officials to fire him last year. His iconoclastic op-eds questioning the academies\u2019 very existence have drawn the ire of military officials for years, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Fleming\u2019s critics say it\u2019s not just the professor\u2019s quest for public headlines that leads them to support his ouster. They say he has behaved inappropriately in the classroom and become too disruptive to the academy\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\t