War Secretary Pete Hegseth recently blocked the promotions of several Navy officers who had been selected by a board of senior admirals to be promoted to one-star admirals.
Hegseth, who has long touted his belief that the military should be a meritocracy, blocked the promotions of nine Navy officers, according to the New York Times. Of those nine officers, three of the officers are women, two are black men, and four are white men.
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The department released the list of 22 nominated promotions on May 22.
Traditionally, defense secretaries have the authority to intervene in the promotions list for cause, but it’s unusual that Hegseth has now done this for both the Army and the Navy’s most recent promotions to the one-star rank.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell disputed on Monday that the decision had to do with the officers’ gender or race.
“More race-baiting garbage from the Failing New York Times and its radical left reporters. They continue to push this worn out narrative because they view almost everything through the lens of race and gender over merit,” Parnell said on social media.
“As we’ve said before, military promotions are given to those who have earned them. The Department will never consider the color of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions,” he continued. “Under President Trump and [Secretary] Hegseth, meritocracy reigns supreme at the War Department.”
Hegseth has long ridiculed diversity and inclusion efforts and has sought to overturn any related measures within the department. He has also indicated that senior military leaders who were following orders under the previous administration in implementing these policies could be pushed out of their roles.
In a congressional hearing on April 30, Hegseth was asked about his recent removal of Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, weeks earlier.
“Ultimately, my view in coming into this department, as I stated in my confirmation hearing, was to change the culture of the department. And it’s ultimately challenging to change the department, the culture of a department with the same people who are a part of or in that department,” he told lawmakers, but would not specifically address George’s removal.
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Hegseth has pushed out several other senior military leaders without explanation other than that they did not meet his vision for his transformation of the department.
He has removed Gen. Charles Q Brown, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,; Adm. Lisa Franchetti the Navy’s chief of naval operations; Adm. Linda Fagan, then the Coast Guard commandant; Gen. James Slife, the former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; and Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, among several others.
