A West Point professor who claims he was stifled, then had his contract canceled for teaching humans are a major cause of climate change, is suing three current and former top officials at the military school, including the University of Wyoming’s new president.
Dr. Adam Kalkstein, a former West Point U.S. Military Academy professor of climatology, alleges that West Point leaders ordered him to “defy science” and violated his First Amendment right to free speech, as well as his academic freedom.
Brigadier General Shane Reeves became UW’s 29th president in July, after serving as Dean of the Academic Board at West Point.
He is a Wyomingite who graduated from Rock Springs High School, and has made headlines for his military background making him a semi-unconventional university president.
Kalkstein on Aug. 24 filed a civil complaint against Reeves, the school’s superintendent Lt. General Steven Gilland (retired from miliary), and Department of Geography and Earth Sciences head Col. Mark Read, all in their official capacities.
The academy is an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, within the Army.
Kalkstein was a tenured professor who taught climate science at the school for more than 17 years, says his complaint, filed via Sussman and Associates attorney Michael Sussman.
He’s asking for a court order blocking West Point’s actions, court-ordered reinstatement to his tenured position, compensatory damages for his material and emotional-distress losses, and attorney’s fees.
Reeves’ UW office referred Cowboy State Daily to West Point for comment.
West Point’s media office declined to comment in light of the pending litigation.
The Saga
Kalkstein was in good standing and was in the middle of a $750,000 research grant as of May 2025, the suit adds.
That month, Read told Kalkstein that due to a decision from Reeves’ office, Kalkstein’s position was being eliminated amid a reduction in force, the complaint says.
Kalkstein alleges that he and another civilian professor who was laid off both taught subject matter that’s “forbidden” under the Trump administration.
“Plaintiff was aware of the Trump administration’s hostility to the accepted scientific notion that human activity was a major cause of present-day climate change,” the complaint says.
The document claims Read said Kalkstein was laid off because he was a civilian professor in a center, yet West Point was “opening a new center seeking civilians in a nearly identical field.”
Kalkstein claims his position was eliminated because he taught that humans cause climate change, and this contrasts “the ideology of the Commander in Chief.”
West Point leaders told Kalkstein that summer he could stay if he found grant money to support his position, the complaint says, adding that Kalkstein had to forfeit his tenure and severance package to take that deal.
Then came a Sept. 11, 2025, meeting in which supervisors relayed a verbal order that professors must remove all mention of human causes of climate change from their courses, the complaint alleges.
The directive included what the document calls “a clear threat that if anyone went to the media, politicians, etc, the entire department would likely be dissolved.”
Kalkstein was teaching that humans were largely responsible for global warming for many years up to that point.
He approached Read about his ethical concerns of “omitting vital information” and said that crossed a red line for him as a scientist, the complaint says.
But to help his colleagues carry the teaching load, he relented one day later and agreed to teach the courses without teaching that humans cause global warming, it adds.
He started turning to resources such as legal staffers at West Point. They directed him to cases that confirm, rather than rebut his point, the complaint claims.
Kalkstein’s complaint says he obeyed the order despite profound misgivings. He launched a small, unsuccessful protest by pointing to the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s Sept. 30, 2025, order highlighting the importance of merit-based employment decisions, the document says.
But, the complaint continues, Kalkstein understood he could keep his job indefinitely because he had grant funding to support it.
Reeves met with the Geography Department on Nov. 5, 2025, the complaint says. One staffer showed a Power Point presentation affirming the department’s compliance with the order not to teach that humans cause climate change.
Kalkstein described his struggles in teaching climatology without that element as comparable to teaching law without referencing the Constitution, the suit says.
“I’m supposed to be an educator and a scientist upholding Army values, but sir, right now, I’m a liar and a fraud,” Kalkstein allegedly said.
The complaint says Reeves countered, angrily, by asking who sets West Point’s agenda.
The Commander in Chief does, Kalkstein responded, but Trump still “needed to act within the Constitution,” says the suit.
The complaint says Reeves suggested Kalkstein resign, and Kalkstein refused.
It claims Reeves yelled that he’d seen enough, and stormed out of the meeting, “again threatening the entire Department if its members did not comply.”
Kalkstein kept obeying the order, his complaint says, and he taught climatology through the fall semester.
Read told Kalkstein in May 2026 that the school decided not to renew his contract past December of this year, the complaint says.
The document calls the move “purely vindictive.”
Read attributed it to Kalkstein’s “poor character and temperament,” which Kalkstein’s suit counters by saying 17 years of glowing evaluations have frequently mentioned his “strong character.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
