Hegseth removed from the Navy promotion list three women and two Black officers who had been nominated by a board of admirals, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The defense secretary also removed four white officers. The resulting list of 22 nominees, published May 22, must be confirmed by the Senate. A Navy official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the service had been “very confident” with the officers on the original slate, including those Hegseth removed, and that the secretary did not explain the reasons for his intervention.
One government source familiar with the matter told the Times that Hegseth had “his favorite MOS’s [military occupational specialties], and then gender and race. He went through the list and scrubbed a few names. It was felt loud and clear.”
The Defense Department denied that the decisions were influenced by race or gender. “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,” said Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson. “Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, meritocracy reigns supreme at the war department.”
Hegseth has previously argued that the military’s promotion system had become distorted by diversity considerations. “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons — based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” he told a meeting of military commanders in Virginia in September. “The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies.”
The intervention violated promotion rules designed to be merit-based and apolitical, a former military official told the Times, and was unusual in a process normally reserved for up-or-down votes by the defense secretary. “He continuing to meddle on an individual basis. He’s stripping autonomy from the service secretaries,” the former official said.
The list published May 22 includes Capt. Sean Barbabella, Trump’s White House physician, who last week declared the nearly 80-year-old president in “excellent health.”
The 22 nominees bear little relation to the demographic composition of the Navy force they would lead. A 2024 government profile of the Navy’s active-duty service members showed that more than 21% are women and that nearly 40% identify with racial minority groups.
Hegseth’s intervention in the Navy promotion list has direct parallels to actions reported in March, when he is said to have directed the Army secretary, Dan Driscoll, to remove two women and two Black officers from a nomination slate for one-star generals.
MSI previously reported that Hegseth fired the Army’s top general in April and has dismissed or sidelined nearly three dozen senior military officers since his narrow Senate confirmation early last year, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations and Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan on Trump’s first day in office.
Hegseth also reassigned Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval Academy, and dismissed Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield as the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, the Guardian reported.
A federal appeals court in Washington on Monday ruled that the government acted illegally by moving to discharge transgender service members. That ruling was a setback for the broader Trump administration efforts to reshape the military, which have included attempts to ban women from combat roles.