The US Coast Guard has reversed a plan to classify swastikas and nooses as "potentially divisive" symbols. Photo / Getty Images
In a hasty reversal, the US Coast Guard has announced swastikas and nooses are prohibited hate symbols – erasing an attempt to soften their definition after the plan elicited furious backlash.
The abrupt policy change on Friday occurred hours after The Washington Post first reported the service was about to enact new harassment guidelines that downgraded the meaning of such symbols of fascism and racism, labelling them instead “potentially divisive”. That shift had been set to take effect December 15.
In a memo to Coast Guard personnel, the service’s acting commandant, Admiral Kevin Lunday, said the policy document issued Friday supersedes all previous guidance on the issue.
“Divisive or hate symbols and flags are prohibited,” Lunday wrote in his memo. “These symbols and flags include, but are not limited to, the following: a noose, a swastika, and any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, anti-Semitism, or any other improper bias.”
The revision also emphasises Confederate flags remain banned from display, except in limited contexts or where they are part of a historical display or a minor part of a painting.
It was unclear Friday who had directed the attempt to reclassify such symbols as “potentially divisive” rather than hate symbols. A Coast Guard spokeswoman did not immediately address questions about how the policy reversal came to be.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard under the purview of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, did not respond to questions Friday seeking to understand whether Noem or her staff at DHS had any involvement in attempting to classify swastikas and nooses as “potentially divisive”, or whether the secretary had even known about the planned language change before the Post’s story was published.
Instead, the agency’s chief spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement attacking the Post and incorrectly claiming its initial reporting was “demonstrably false”.
“It is unfortunate,” she said, “that the Coast Guard must take time away from its mission to protect our nation to respond to these baseless smears and revolting lies.”
The tenor of McLaughlin’s message was at odds with a statement from Lunday’s chief spokeswoman, Jennifer Plozai, who had acknowledged that Coast Guard leadership intended to review the matter. Hours later, officials issued Lunday’s memo to the force with the new policy document.
Though the Coast Guard is not part of the Defence Department, the service had been reworking its personnel policies to align with the Trump administration’s changing tolerances for hazing and harassment within the US military. In September, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a review and overhaul of those policies, calling the military’s existing standards “overly broad” and saying they jeopardise troops’ combat readiness.
Lunday ordered a similar move within the Coast Guard about a year ago. It came days into US President Donald Trump’s second term, after he ousted Lunday’s predecessor and put him in charge of the service. Lunday’s directive suspended a hazing and harassment policy, implemented in 2023, that was unequivocal in its repudiation of swastikas and other inflammatory symbols. The revised document, which watered down that language, was published online this month, prompting this week’s uproar and the Coast Guard’s ensuing scramble to perform damage control.
Divisive or hate symbols and flags are prohibited. These symbols and flags include, but are not limited to, the following: a noose, a swastika, and any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, anti-Semitism, or any other improper bias.
Potentially divisive symbols and flags include, but are not limited to, the following: a noose, a swastika, and any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, or other bias.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of symbols whose display, presentation, creation, or depiction would constitute a potential hate incident: a noose, a swastika, supremacist symbols, Confederate symbols or flags, and anti-Semitic symbols. The display of these types of symbols constitutes a potential hate incident because hate-based groups have co-opted or adopted them as symbols of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, or other bias.
The Coast Guard’s now-defunct plan to reduce the swastika and noose to just “potentially divisive” had confounded and upset some lawmakers and service members.
“At a time when anti-Semitism is rising in the United States and around the world, relaxing policies aimed at fighting hate crimes not only sends the wrong message to the men and women of our Coast Guard, but it puts their safety at risk,” Senator Jacky Rosen (Democrat, Nevada), a member of the Senate’s Commerce committee, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard, told the Post this week.
A Coast Guard official who had seen the earlier proposal, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal, said: “We don’t deserve the trust of the nation if we’re unclear about the divisiveness of swastikas.”
The Coast Guard was the first military service targeted by the Trump administration’s sweeping dismissals of senior leaders and its broader shake-up of military culture.
On the first day of the new Trump administration, the commandant at that time, Admiral Linda Fagan, was removed from her position, with administration officials citing her focus on diversity initiatives and her handling of sexual assault investigations. Fagan was the first woman to lead a branch of the US military.
Trump chose Lunday to replace her. The admiral’s Senate confirmation hearing was Wednesday. It is unclear when his nomination may come up for a vote.