Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “war on wokeness” appears to have taken a turn into blatant racism and sexism. Military officials are now questioning whether race and gender play a role in military promotions after Hegseth struck the names of two Black officers and two women officers from a promotion list of potential one-star generals.
According to The New York Times, Hegseth had been pressing Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll to remove the names of the four officers from the list for several months. Driscoll refused due to the officers’ decades-long record of exemplary service. Hegseth’s removal of the four names is notable, as historically the secretary of defense has either approved or rejected the entire list, not individuals. In fact, it’s still unclear if Hegseth is legally able to remove specific names from the list.
Though when has legality ever gotten in the way of the Trump administration doing as it pleases?
From The Times:
Those struck included a Black armor officer and combat veteran, who was singled out because he had written a paper nearly 15 years earlier that analyzed why African American officers historically have opted for support jobs over frontline, combat positions, military officials said.
Military officials said a female logistics officer was targeted because she had served in Afghanistan during the bloody 2021 withdrawal. Current and former military officials said she performed her job well amid the chaos and intense pressure that followed the collapse of Afghanistan’s government and security forces. Mr. Hegseth has blasted the operation as “disastrous and embarrassing” and vowed to hold officers who took part in it to account.
It’s unclear why Mr. Hegseth removed the other two officers — another logistics officer and a finance specialist — from the list, military officials said.
Hegseth has pretty much been saying the quiet part at full volume throughout his tenure as Defense Secretary. One of his first actions upon becoming defense secretary was firing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. CQ Brown, the second Black person to hold the job, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to ever hold the Navy’s highest uniformed position. No explanation was ever given for their firings.
Hegseth also ended the Command Assessment Program, which ensured that race and gender didn’t prevent officers from achieving top-ranked jobs in the military. If that wasn’t enough, Hegseth has also spearheaded an effort to restore Confederate names to military bases that were renamed under the Biden administration. If you needed more convincing that Hegseth is probably a racist, how about the fact that the Pentagon no longer acknowledges MLK Day or Black History Month? Oh, and who can forget that Hegseth used the long-standing ties between the Boy Scouts and the U.S. military to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the scouts.
Hegseth made all of these moves as part of his ongoing effort to restore a “warrior culture” in the military. I truly don’t get why military officials are only now asking the question of whether race and gender play a role in promotions, when it’s clearly been Hegseth’s plan the entire time.
The Pentagon didn’t directly address the removal of the names when asked by The Times. “Under Secretary Hegseth, military promotions are given to those who have earned them,” Sean Parnell, the department’s chief spokesman, told the Times. Parnell called the process “apolitical and unbiased.”
You know, actively firing and denying advancement to Black and women officers feels neither apolitical nor unbiased. It actually comes off as quite the opposite.
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