Recommendations of the Editorial team
Donald Trump is known for enthusiastically saying that the military men he interacts with as president come straight from the “casting.” However, black women don’t seem to play a role in his film – at least that’s what one report suggests. which the New York Times published on Friday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently blocked the promotion of four Army colonels to one-star generals, the Times reports. Two of the axed officers are black and the other two are women. Hegseth has long been waging a campaign against “woke” diversity initiatives in the military and has taken a number of unusual measures against people of color and women since taking over the Pentagon. Hegseth is said to have put massive pressure on Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll to remove the four names from the promotion list – but Driscoll refused and defended the officers as qualified.
The Times also highlights an incident from last summer: Hegseth’s chief of staff Ricky Buria was upset because Driscoll had appointed Major General Antoinette Gant, a black woman, to head the Military District of Washington. The promotion would have meant Gant standing by Trump’s side at ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery. Buria is said to have then told Driscoll that Trump did not want to stand next to a black female officer at military events – the Times cites three current and former officials who are familiar with the process.
Driscoll alerts White House
Driscoll was dismayed and contacted a senior White House official – who confirmed that Trump did not, in fact, want to be seen next to a Black woman.
Buria denied that conversation took place and described the allegations as “fake Washington gossip” in a text message to The Times.
That Hegseth is torpedoing the promotion of black and female officers is hardly surprising: He has been vocal against DEI in the military for years and has spoken out against women serving in combat missions in the past. Shortly after Trump’s election victory, Hegseth called for the firing of then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown — a Black man — on the grounds that anyone “involved in anything with this DEI woke shit” had to go. Trump fired Brown shortly after taking office a few months later.
Hegseth’s Pentagon and DEI
Hegseth’s Pentagon has since ordered a “low-key” approach to Juneteenth communications, deleted memorial pages for Black, Latino and female soldiers from Arlington National Cemetery’s website, removed (and then restored) content about Jackie Robinson’s military service and the Tuskegee Airmen, and eliminated a grant program designed to ensure all officers had access to leadership positions regardless of race or gender.
Hegseth also mocked having to endure “fat soldiers” – in keeping with Trump’s strong penchant for optics. The fact that the president apparently does not want to be photographed next to a black female officer is not the first time that he has been accused of only wanting to tolerate certain types of soldiers at his side. “The Atlantic” reported in 2020 that he did not want disabled veterans to take part in a military parade that he had generals organize in 2018. Peter Baker of the Times and Susan Glasser of the New Yorker described the incident in detail in their 2024 book The Divider: Trump told then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired general, that he didn’t want “wounded guys in the parade” – that “didn’t look good to me.”
