Woods Gets Honorable Discharge, Must Repay Tuition

Anthony Woods, M.P.P. ’08—a U.S. Army captain who had served two tours in Iraq—was dismissed from the military after coming out as gay.

Anthony C. Woods, M.P.P. ’08 (the subject of this item in our January-February issue), recently learned that his discharge from the military will be classified as honorable.

A former captain in the U.S. Army who served two tours in Iraq and had been tapped to teach at West Point, Woods gave the graduate English address at Commencement last year. Soon after, he informed his Army supervisor that he was gay, effectively initiating his own dismissal.

Woods, who now works in the Washington, D.C., office of New York governor David Paterson, will still be required to pay the government $35,000, the cost of his military scholarship to the Harvard Kennedy School—a “small price to pay,” he notes, “for being able to live my life."

 

Most popular

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

RSS Creator and Reddit cofounder Aaron Swartz dead at 26

The former Safra Lab fellow was a leader of the open-access movement.

Lafayette’s Unexpected Gift to George Washington: Pheasants

The two birds will be on display at Harvard this summer.

Explore More From Current Issue

Portrait of a man in a denim shirt beside a blue book cover for "Gretal and the Great War" featuring an illustration of a leg holding an army helmet..

The Gretel and the Great War author on how the Lampoon derailed his science career—and set him on a literary path.

Three young women posed side by side against red background.

The 2026-2027 Ledecky and Summer Undergraduate Fellows

Runners compete on a track, with a Harvard athlete in the foreground and others behind.

After a historic 2025-26 season, athletes eye NCAA championships.