Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who heads a military with an enlisted corps that is more racially diverse than the U.S. population, has been one of the most loyal soldiers in the Trump administration’s war against diversity, equality, and inclusion, or DEI. He has helped lead President Donald Trump’s charge against transgender troops. At an employee town hall at the Pentagon on Friday, the former Fox News television personality laid out his perspective in simple terms: “The single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength,’” Hegseth said. “It served a purpose of dividing the force.”
These efforts are in keeping with the U.S. military’s historical embrace of popular bigotry, including more than 150 years of racial segregation, sex and gender discrimination, a longtime ban on openly gay troops, and continuing underrepresentation of women and Black people at the highest levels of the armed forces.
Last month, Hegseth went so far as to launch a new task force to oversee the elimination of all Defense Department DEI offices and eradicate anything that remains of their efforts. But almost a month after Trump launched his war on DEI, the Defense Department’s website continues to host information about diversity, equality, and inclusion — including many marquee DEI efforts launched during Trump’s first term in office.
“I doubt anyone cares very much about it, Hegseth aside.”
“We are committed to making the DoD a workplace of choice that is characterized by diversity, equality, and inclusion,” reads a 2020 Department of Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion report, issued under Trump, which is still available at the Pentagon’s defense.gov website. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to promote an environment free from barriers that may prevent personnel from realizing their potential and rising to the highest levels of responsibility within the Department.”
Asked if the remaining webpages advocating DEI policies and news releases touting the merits of diversity initiatives were due to Pentagon intransigence or incompetence, one Defense Department official was circumspect. “More of the latter, probably, to be honest,” the official told The Intercept on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation. “But I doubt anyone cares very much about it, Hegseth aside. Even after you write this, they probably will miss some.”
Trump doubled down on fighting DEI at the Defense Department in a January 27 executive order. DEI served to “undermine leadership, merit, and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness,” the president stated. He said that “any vestiges of DEI offices” should be abolished; two days later, Hegseth created his new “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” Task Force and directed it to do just that.
Almost two weeks later, the Pentagon’s main website, Defense.gov is still filled with pro-DEI documents, news releases, and webpages. Though Trump blamed the Biden administration for forcing DEI programs “into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government,” the site still touts many diversity initiatives launched during the first Trump administration.
“Diversity and inclusion in the Department are moral imperatives — to ensure every member of the Total Force is treated with dignity and respect,” reads a 2020 memorandum from then-Trump administration Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. Another memo from that same year, by another Trump secretary of defense, Mark Esper, announced the creation of a “new, internal Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion in the Military, which [was to] conduct a 6-month sprint to develop concrete, actionable recommendations to increase racial diversity and ensure equal opportunity across all ranks.”
Other reminders of pro-DEI efforts under Trump include a 2020 press release touting Defense Department “Diversity and Inclusion Counseling Resources” and an Esper memo on “Immediate Actions to Address Diversity, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity in the Military Service.” “Diversity and inclusivity in the ranks are not merely aspirations,” he wrote, “they are fundamental necessities to our readiness and our mission success.”
The Pentagon failed to comment on the accomplishments of Hegseth’s anti-DEI task force or its success in eradicating reminders of past Pentagon diversity efforts under Trump and others. “When we have something to provide on the Task Force we will follow-up,” Pentagon spokesperson Joshua L. Wick told The Intercept. “We don’t have anything to release at this time.”
Evidence of the Pentagon’s more inclusive past also live on in webpages deemed to be “part of a historical collection” on Defense.gov. Jim Garamone’s 2022 DOD News article, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Are Necessities in U.S. Military,” is one of them. “I want people to see [DEI] as another tool in the toolkit,” said Bishop Garrison — then the senior adviser to the secretary of defense for human capital and diversity, equity, and inclusion — in the article. “It’s not just something that has to be done because of some type of cultural ideology or culture wars that are going on — that’s not the case at all. It is, again, not diversity for diversity’s sake.” Other such articles include: “Diversity in U.S., Partner Militaries Is a Strategic Strength” and “[Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin Speaks Out on Importance of Diversity in White House Roundtable,” both also from 2022.
Last month, the Pentagon managed to pull down diversity.defense.gov. The page now reads: invalid URL. Under the last Trump administration, the website stated that the “changing face of the Nation demands that we change” to better reflect the “demographic make-up of the American population,” according to an archived webpage.
The Pentagon official was succinct in describing his own department’s efforts to scrub evidence of its past DEI efforts: “Dumb.” He went on to say that while the administration has emphasized increasing “lethality” and strengthening the military, they appear far more focused on divisive culture war “hobbyhorses.”
Efforts to purge DEI content aren’t limited to the Defense Department. After Trump called DEI efforts “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” in an Inauguration Day executive order, documents on diversity, equality, and inclusion were stripped from the websites of the Office of Personnel Management, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security.
Webpages once devoted to diversity and inclusion at the Department of Homeland Security, for example, now mostly lead to error pages featuring a photo of a DHS service beagle that state, “Page Not Found. It looks like K-9 Scout wasn’t able to find the page that you are searching for. The page may have been moved, deleted, or is otherwise unavailable.” Others offer even less. A page recognizing the winners of a 2019 award for employees who “excelled in efforts to promote diversity at the Department of Homeland Security,” for example, now leads to a page which reads “Access Denied. You are not authorized to access this page.”
Anti-diversity efforts are in keeping with a long U.S. military tradition, mirroring the broader American culture of bigotry. Racial minorities have volunteered or been drafted into military service since the Revolutionary War, but the armed forces remained segregated until 1948. Since then, the Defense Department has periodically sought to increase its ranks by pursuing women and racial and ethnic minorities, although discrimination has continued to be a hallmark. The Pentagon, for example, barred gay men and women from serving openly until forced by Congress to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.
The issue of transgender service members has become a culture war flashpoint over the last decade. Trump banned trans personnel from serving in the armed forces during his first administration, and President Joe Biden reversed that decision, only to have Trump recently issue an executive order that is likely to ban trans troops from serving once again.
The Pentagon also ordered a halt to all medical procedures associated with “affirming or facilitating a gender transition” and paused the acceptance of new recruits with a “history of gender dysphoria,” according to a memo posted to X on Monday by Hegseth. Less than 400 active-duty military personnel per year, on average, receive gender-affirming surgical and nonsurgical care, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service issued in January.
In recent years, the Pentagon has sought to increase the numbers of women and racial minorities in the military’s officer corps, which would bring it into line with the demographics of the enlisted ranks.
Active-duty enlisted personnel are more racially diverse than the general population in America. Non-white service members account for 33.4 percent of all active-duty enlisted troops, according to Pentagon statistics.
Some 17.6 percent of the total active-duty force is Black, compared to 13.7 percent of the general population; 19.5 percent are Hispanic or Latino, roughly the same percentage as the general population; and 17.7 percent are women, a number that has grown over several decades as more military specialties have become fully integrated. Hegseth voiced opposition to women serving in combat before his nomination to serve as defense secretary. During his confirmation hearing, he reversed course, stating that he supports women serving in combat roles as long as they meet the same standards as men. This standard has been military policy for nearly a decade.
Minorities have always been underrepresented in the officer corps, especially its upper echelons, and remain so relative to the enlisted ranks and the U.S. population, according to a 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service. Black soldiers, for instance, make up 9 percent of active-duty officers but only 6.5 percent of generals. They are especially underrepresented at the highest levels — three- and four-star generals — which also have the most influence.
Women have played important roles in the nation’s wars since the American Revolution but were exceptionally limited in their ability to serve in the military until the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act was passed in 1948. Today, women are still significantly underrepresented at the highest ranks.
“We don’t have anything to offer on this,” Wick, the Pentagon spokesperson, replied when asked whether Hegseth views his recent pronouncements on DEI and transgender troops as part of a rich, historical continuum of U.S. military discrimination against minorities and women.
In his military-focused anti-DEI executive order, Trump said diversity efforts “violate Americans’ consciences by engaging in invidious race and sex discrimination.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers did not respond to questions about whether Trump is satisfied by Hegseth’s efforts to eradicate DEI so far.
