Pete Hegseth’s staffing moves prompt allegations of militarized discrimination

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s effort to purge the Pentagon of so-called “woke” ideologies has earned him plaudits from the White House. But Hegseth’s “highly unusual” decision to strike four officers — two women and two Black men — from a recent promotions list has some asking whether the officers were “being singled out because of their race or gender,” The New York Times said. The incident has resurrected a question that has dogged the secretary since his confirmation: Is the Defense Department still the microcosmic American melting pot it once was?

‘DEI woke sh-t’ has ‘got to go’

It is “exceedingly rare” for one-star general promotion lists like the one recently edited by Hegseth to receive “intense scrutiny from a defense secretary,” the Times said. The secretary’s sentiments dovetail with the “broader Trump administration’s attacks” on federal government programs designed to “support and promote the concerns of minority populations,” said Military Times.

Having “honed his communication skills at Fox News,” where talent regularly says “outrageous things as a way of showing their viewers how eager they are to own the libs,” Hegseth has “long stewed” about women in military leadership, The Atlantic said. He’s also “hammered on the idea of ‘merit’” to imply that minority officers have been “promoted because of their race rather than their talent.”

“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said in a podcast interview during his cabinet nomination process in late 2024. Anyone, no matter if they are a “general, admiral or whatever,” who was “involved in any of that DEI woke sh-t” has “got to go.” The secretary acted on those inclinations “almost immediately upon arriving at the Pentagon,” The Atlantic said, firing multiple senior officers — all Black or women — “who were then replaced with white men.”

As secretary, Hegseth has “moved quickly to remake the military as more white and more male,” said historian and journalist Garrett Graff at his Doomsday Scenario newsletter. In firing, among others, the “first Black man to lead a service branch, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. C.Q. Brown, and the first woman to serve as the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti,” Hegseth has “left the U.S. military without a single woman at a four-star rank.” In Hegseth’s Pentagon, an all-white, all-male Joint Chiefs of Staff is tasked with “overseeing a roughly 1.3 million-strong military that is about 20% female and 43% people of color.”

‘Trying to erase Black and women’s leadership and history’

Hegseth’s recent promotion interference is “just the latest of numerous attacks on women,” the Congressional Black Caucus and Democratic Women’s Caucus said in a joint statement. “It is clear” that Hegseth is “trying to erase Black and women’s leadership and history.” In that context, his effort “isn’t an anomaly” but rather part of a “coordinated and sustained strategy.”

To deny promotions “based on their race or gender” would “betray every principle of merit-based service that military officers uphold,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) on X. Such a move would “also violate federal law.”