Resegregating the military
By 
Your periodic reminder that this is what “anti-DEI” politics has always actually meant:
Service in wartime has long been a reliable path for Americans denied full citizenship to secure their rights. Black troops’ contributions to the Union cause during the Civil War helped convince Abraham Lincoln of the righteousness of extending suffrage to Black men. Women’s work on the home front during World War I persuaded a reluctant Woodrow Wilson to urge passage of the Nineteenth Amendment as a “war measure.” The military’s repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was followed a few years later by the Supreme Court’s recognition of the marriage rights of same-sex couples.
Perhaps the Trump administration is hoping the process works just as well in reverse.
Despite the conflict with Iran and other recent military activity overseas, the Pentagon seems focused on purging minorities and women. Last week, NBC News reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had intervened to block or delay the promotions of more than a dozen Black and female senior officers. According to both NBC and The New York Times, some officials are concerned that officers are being targeted because of their race, gender, or perceived political affiliation. In one instance last year, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, bluntly stated that “President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events,” the Times reported. (Buria denied this.)
The Pentagon told NBC and the Times that promotions under Hegseth are “apolitical and unbiased.” Nevertheless, the episode is part of a broader pattern. So far, Trump and Hegseth have dismissed or forced the retirements of several high-ranking Black and/or female officers: General C. Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations; Lieutenant General Telita Crosland as head of the Defense Health Agency; and most recently Major General William Green as the Army’s chief of chaplains. Hegseth has publicly said that “our diversity is our strength” is the “dumbest phrase in military history.” By erasing Defense Department histories of nonwhite service members, and seeking to restore tributes to Confederate soldiers who took up arms against their country in defense of slavery, Hegseth has demonstrated a limited view of whose service is to be honored.
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Hegseth infamously claimed at the beginning of his tenure that promotions in the military would be “color-blind and merit-based.” It is now clear that this was not true. During his confirmation hearing, Hegseth was unable to provide any evidence whatsoever that the military had lowered standards in the name of diversity. If that is the case, then why have we seen so many well-qualified Black and female senior officers dismissed? Why did the Pentagon, for no plausible reason other than animus, expel trans service members after years of honorable service? “Color-blind and merit-based” now appears to have been a smoke screen for a politically motivated purge of not only Black people and women from leadership positions, but white officers who value their service.
The message being sent to lower-ranking officers is that they will be assessed on the basis of their gender, race, or politics, rather than their abilities—which will cause many officers to leave rather than stay and be mistreated, and many potential officers not to enlist to begin with. It is hard to deny the full benefits of citizenship to those who are willing to fight and die for their country; it is easier if that sacrifice is minimized or erased. Rewarding or punishing officers based on race, gender, or perceived political loyalty to Trump could also aid the administration’s larger project of undermining the claims of women and ethnic and religious minorities to equal treatment under the law in other parts of American society.
This is why whether or not it narrowly succeeds Trump’s attempt to nullify birthright citizenship are so important. The administration simply rejects the legitimacy of the Reconstruction Amendments. Equal citizenship is anathema to everything rhe administration stands for.