Part 3: AMU Indoctrination Starts with Dr. Kate Brannum

Subjects of Interest:

• American Military University (AMU)

• Dr. Kate Brannum

It’s impossible to ignore the role of leadership in shaping the direction and culture of any academic program. At AMU, the Department of Security and Global Studies has developed a counter-terrorism curriculum that overwhelmingly emphasizes right-wing extremism and white supremacy as the primary domestic threats, while minimizing or ignoring left-wing violence. This result doesn’t happen by accident. The department chair, Dr. Kate Brannum, has publicly demonstrated views and attitudes that make it crystal clear why the curriculum looks the way it does.

Dr. Brannum’s public writings and commentary aren’t just ideological, they’re openly hostile toward people she disagrees with. She has called conservative Ammon Bundy’s supporters “unstable and dangerous,” accusing them of partnering with society’s most dangerous elements to carry out their beliefs, all while hiding behind a “folksy cowboy image” that fools many into underestimating the threat. She went further, explicitly pointing out that their Christian affiliation shields them from scrutiny: “They are a version, no matter how extreme, of Christianity and not Islam—and this double standard should not distract from how dangerous they are.” Meanwhile, she openly supports left-wing groups that share similar grievances, giving them a pass or portraying their activism as legitimate responses to oppression and injustice, grievances that the Bundys themselves also claim, yet which she dismisses or condemns. This clear double standard exposes a biased lens that distorts the curriculum she oversees.

She attacked elected officials like Rep. Steve King (R) as “overtly racist and part of a wider far-right philosophical viewpoint that reduces women to reproductive vessels.” She wrote that opposition to Planned Parenthood reflects an “ideology that requires women to sacrifice personal decisions about health for the greater good of the nation... turning women into tools of the state’s racial and nationalist goals.” On social media, she mocked entire communities protesting illegal immigration, branding them purveyors of hate with hashtags like “#murrietahatecityusa.”

This isn’t thoughtful academic critique. It’s inflammatory, sweeping condemnation that labels entire groups, conservatives, Christians, and white Americans, as threats or enemies. Dr. Brannum’s own words expose her hypocrisy. In a 2021 Facebook post, she warned, “When hatred is spread, then you tolerate evil,” equating support for hateful politicians with support for evil itself. Though she was speaking about anti-Semitism, the principle she claimed to stand for, tolerating hate is supporting evil, applies across the board. Yet, by her own standard, she spreads that hate openly, demonizing entire swaths of the population and allowing hateful memes mocking right-wingers to remain on her page without objection.

That double standard is even clearer in how she handles hate when it comes from those she agrees with. In a 2025 Facebook post about a statement from Donald Trump, a commenter on Dr. Brannum’s thread posted a meme that mocked right-wingers as “a group of gullible idiots that can be used to shake money out of or made to vote against their own interests if you scare them enough with imaginary threats.” Dr. Brannum didn’t create the meme, but she let it stand, unchallenged, on her own page. In her view, hate directed at people she disagrees with doesn’t seem to count.

Even Dr. Brannum recognizes the dangers of political interference in critical institutions. In a 2022 article on judicial independence, she warns that political leaders undermine democracy when they let ideology dictate the courts. She writes about the importance of fairness, impartiality, and protecting the integrity of vital systems from political manipulation. But what she preaches on paper is the opposite of what she practices. Dr. Brannum has allowed her personal political views to infiltrate and shape AMU’s counter-terrorism curriculum. The very kind of interference she condemns in courts is the same interference she brings into AMU classrooms.

Her social media posts make this even clearer. She uses hashtags like #MurrietaHateCityUSA and #bundybullshit to smear entire communities and movements she disagrees with. She reposts or tolerates memes that mock and dehumanize conservatives, Christians, and right-leaning Americans. She praises left-wing causes while labeling conservative activism as dangerous extremism. And she does all this while claiming, in that same 2022 article, that political bias destroys trust in institutions. She calls out judges who let politics shape their rulings, but she lets her own politics shape what AMU students are taught about national security threats.

This isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s proof that Dr. Brannum’s leadership at AMU is driven by the very power games she claims to oppose. She warns about the dangers of political corruption in courts but runs a program that indoctrinates students into a biased, one-sided view of terrorism. In her world, political interference is only a problem when it’s done by people she disagrees with.

In fact, Dr. Brannum’s own published articles make this hypocrisy even clearer. In writing about judicial independence, she warns that political interference in critical institutions breeds corruption, unqualified leadership, and public distrust. She describes how systems meant to protect integrity become tools for pushing personal ideology when leaders put politics above merit. Yet this is exactly what she does at AMU: using her power to inject political bias into the curriculum, shaping future professionals not with facts, but with an agenda that matches her views. The damage she decries in the courts is the damage she causes in AMU’s classrooms.

Her deliberate stoking of fear and division doesn’t stop in her commentary; it’s baked into the curriculum she oversees. According to her professional profile, Dr. Brannum studies how fear is used as currency in political action, how it’s traded for power, and how it shapes communities and policy. When you review her public statements, it’s clear she applies that principle by stoking fear of the political right to fuel power for causes she supports. Conservatives, Christians, and white Americans become scapegoats, threats to security, women’s rights, and democracy itself, while left-wing and Islamist violence is excused, portrayed as understandable responses to oppression or marginalization. This is politics by fear, not education. And AMU’s counter-terrorism curriculum reflects exactly that one-sided agenda.

The hashtag #MurrietaHateCityUSA was part of a campaign during the 2014 immigration protests branding the entire city of Murrieta as hateful. Dr. Brannum echoed this talking point, comparing Murrieta to what the political left has long alleged Birmingham represented during Bull Connor’s era, a city and time of violent, racist oppression. This wasn’t a targeted critique; it was a sweeping rhetorical move condemning an entire community as morally corrupt. This is precisely what she’s done with AMU’s counter-terrorism curriculum. Rather than teaching students to evaluate all threats fairly and objectively, she uses her authority to label entire groups, conservatives, Christians, and others, as dangerous by default, while downplaying or excusing violence from groups that fit her political views. The tools are fear and shame, wielded in the classroom just as fiercely as in her public commentary.

A thorough review of Dr. Brannum’s social media presence reveals a consistent pattern. She frequently uses hashtags like #MurrietaHateCityUSA, #bundybullshit, and #oregonstandoff, not just to critique policies or events, but to paint entire movements and communities as hateful or extremist. Her posts show repeated disdain for conservative protests, Christian-aligned groups, and towns opposing illegal immigration. Her rhetoric doesn’t merely challenge ideas, it brands whole populations as threats or enemies.

This behavior is deeply concerning because it mirrors how she shapes AMU’s counter-terrorism program. Under her leadership, the curriculum fails to fairly assess threats based on facts and evidence. Instead, it reflects her personal vendettas: right-wing and Christian-aligned groups are presented as America’s top domestic threats, while violence from left-wing extremists, radical environmentalists, Black Lives Matter (BLM), anarchists, or Islamist radicals is minimized or ignored. This isn’t education; it’s indoctrination, powered by fear and political bias, the very things she swears she fights.

Dr. Brannum’s hypocrisy is on full display. She rails against hatred, division, and stereotyping, yet spreads divisive, hateful rhetoric herself. She publicly mocks religious traditions, calls entire political groups “far-right” as a slur, and retweets misinformation that aligns with her worldview. She claims to oppose stereotypes while employing them regularly. She criticizes sexism, yet posts content that could easily be labeled sexist. She denounces misinformation but amplifies it in her posts.

Her Twitter disclaimer says, “Opinions are my own—Retweets may or may not be endorsements,” but her consistent engagement with these views, coupled with her academic role, makes it impossible to see these as anything but endorsements. This ideology drives how she runs AMU’s counter-terrorism curriculum.

Dr. Brannum isn’t just a loud voice online. She’s the department chair, shaping faculty hiring, academic priorities, and course content. The curriculum mirrors her biases. The same groups she demonizes publicly are taught as the most dangerous threats to national security. Left-wing violence, BLM, anarchists, Pro-Palestinian mobs, and Islamist extremists get barely a mention or are excused. This bias corrupts the education AMU claims to provide.

AMU touts balanced, rigorous education for future security professionals. But with a leader who openly shows contempt for large parts of the population, that promise is a sham. Until the university holds leadership accountable and demands curriculum grounded in fairness and truth, not political vendettas, nothing will change.

Dr. Brannum isn’t the only one. Many in AMU’s leadership and faculty share similar patterns of bias, hostility, and hate. Their writings are housed in the Richard G. Trefry Library, and their posts are scattered across social media, already captured in a legal and defensible manner. A future, more exhaustive investigation will detail how these views shape the institution’s culture and curriculum.

Click the links below for a breakdown of AMU’s counter-terrorism and homeland security curriculum. Each entry focuses on a specific course, pattern, or policy, exposing how bias undermines national security and professional training.