As a part of his ongoing warfare in opposition to range, fairness, and inclusion, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk, the ship honoring the slain homosexual rights icon and Navy veteran.
A protection official confirmed the choice to a number of shops, noting that the timing was deliberate, with June being Delight Month.
Navy.com first reported the anticipated title change, and CBS Information later obtained inner Navy paperwork detailing rollout timelines for saying the brand new title. Thus far, the substitute title has not been disclosed.
USNS Harvey Milk is a part of the John Lewis class of oilers, a bunch of ships named after trailblazing civil rights figures. Others within the class are named after Earl Warren, Robert F. Kennedy, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Reality. However now, all are below risk of being renamed.
And CBS reviews that Harvey Milk is simply the beginning. Different ships on Hegseth’s goal listing embrace these named after Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, and Medgar Evers. All of it’s a part of a broader push to erase progressive and civil rights figures from navy honors.
Ship renamings are uncommon and haven’t occurred on the path of a protection secretary in latest reminiscence. The final renaming in 2023 adopted a congressional fee’s advice to wash Accomplice-linked names from navy belongings, together with USS Chancellorsville and USNS Maury.
However this time, the motivation isn’t historic reckoning. It’s political retribution.
Hegseth’s order is a part of a sweeping effort to wipe out so-called “wokeism” within the ranks, below the banner of restoring “warrior culture.” Since taking workplace, he’s purged DEI content material from navy web sites, banned observances like Delight Month, and sought to undo civil rights advances. He as soon as even recommended renaming the B-29 Enola Homosexual—not due to historical past… however as a result of “gay” is within the title.
“Our military is the most powerful in the world – but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. “It is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”
Harvey Milk was one of many first overtly homosexual elected officers in the USA, and the primary in California. He served within the Navy as a diving officer throughout the Korean Warfare, at a time when homosexual service members needed to serve in silence. In 1955, after being questioned by Navy investigators about his sexuality, he was compelled to resign with the rank of lieutenant junior grade.
After the navy pushed him out, Milk grew to become a pioneering activist. He helped type the Castro Village Affiliation—one of many first LGBTQ-owned enterprise networks within the nation—and was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He championed anti-discrimination legal guidelines and helped defeat Proposition 6, which might have required town’s faculties to fireside homosexual lecturers.
Lower than a 12 months into workplace, Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone have been assassinated by a disgruntled former supervisor. The killer, Dan White, obtained a sentence of simply 7 years, sparking mass protests.
When the Navy named a ship after Milk in 2021, former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro mentioned he “made a difference” and known as him the sort of chief the Navy ought to honor. However that was below President Joe Biden, after all. Underneath President Donald Trump, the message has flipped solely.
Since Hegseth’s appointment, the Pentagon has scrubbed mentions of heritage and consciousness months. His “Identity Months Dead at DoD” directive banned any use of official time or assets on observances like Black Historical past Month, Girls’s Historical past Month, and Delight Month.
He’s even tried to purge navy web sites of references to key civil rights figures—individuals like Milk—whose very existence represents the values that Hegseth and Trump appear decided to erase.
The renaming of USNS Harvey Milk isn’t an remoted choice. It’s only one piece of a bigger, spiteful marketing campaign to rewrite navy historical past within the picture of grievance politics.
