A West Point diploma, a communist slogan, an other-than-honorable discharge, and now a fully funded doctoral program. Spenser Rapone’s academic trajectory is quite the résumé, though probably not the recruiting pitch most Americans associate with military service.
According to The Gateway Pundit, citing Townhall and the Washington Free Beacon, Rapone is now a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. The former Army officer first attracted widespread attention in 2017 after posting a photograph from his May 2016 West Point graduation.
In that picture, Rapone raised his fist and displayed the inside of his service cap. The message read: “Communism will win.” Subtle it was not.
Townhall’s account says the Army investigated Rapone and found that he had advocated online for socialist revolution and disparaged senior officers. He resigned in 2018 and received an other-than-honorable discharge. That is a rather different ending from the military career a West Point graduation would ordinarily suggest.
His subsequent move into academia has brought the episode back into circulation. A December 2024 social media post highlighted his departure from the Army and his academic path, taking a sarcastic swipe at higher education in the process.
The newer reporting goes beyond an old graduation photograph. The Washington Free Beacon describes Rapone as a self-described “revolutionary socialist” studying “modern Arab intellectual history” and the “history of the modern Middle East,” among other subjects. It reports that his University of Chicago doctoral studies are fully funded.
There is nothing inherently objectionable about studying the Middle East. The issue raised by the reporting is what Rapone has allegedly chosen to celebrate publicly, not the name of his academic specialty. Scholarship and applause for violent leaders are not interchangeable, however impressive the university letterhead might look.
The Free Beacon reports that Rapone has publicly praised Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Syria’s Assad family. It also reports that his most inflammatory public statements appeared in Arabic on X and remained available there.
One quoted post, dated October 18, 2024, said: “Glory to the martyred leader Yahya Sinwar,” following Israel’s killing of the Hamas leader whom the report identifies as the mastermind of the October 7 massacre.
Journalist Jon Levine also highlighted Rapone’s funded doctoral position and alleged extremist sympathies in a November 11, 2026, post.
The contrast is hard to miss: conduct that helped end an Army career has been followed by a place at a prestigious university. Academic freedom allows room for controversial ideas. It does not require the rest of us to confuse praise for terrorist leaders with intellectual sophistication. A doctoral program may confer credentials; it does not make someone’s public judgments any wiser.
