The U.S. Coast Guard has downgraded swastikas from hate symbols to "potentially divisive” in its new workplace harassment policy, according to a report.
The new policy came into effect on Monday, according to the Washington Post, citing a memo sent from the Coast Guard to Congress earlier this week.
The Independent has requested comment from the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Post previously reported that the new harassment policy would include the change to the swastika’s classification, but the Trump administration had dismissed the claim as "false."
However, within hours of that reporting, Coast Guard Admiral Kevin Lunday issued a memo on November 20 denouncing symbols like swastikas and nooses, and insisted that both will remain prohibited for Coast Guard personnel.
Lundy also said that his ruling would supersede any other language on the matter, suggesting a potential disparity between the actual on-paper harassment policy at the Coast Guard and the admiral's orders.
“This is not an updated policy but a new policy to combat any misinformation and double down that the U.S. Coast Guard forbids these symbols,” the Coast Guard stated at the time.
The previous Coast Guard policy included the following statements on hate symbols:
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. Symbols can be presented as images, on any type of material or clothing, as words or numbers, and in any combination. Other conduct or speech, including highly charged epithets, slurs, or other comments not involving a symbol, can also be a potential hate incident.
At the time of the initial report, Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen said the policy change "rolls back important protections against bigotry and could allow for horrifically hateful symbols like swastikas and nooses to be inexplicably permitted to be displayed."
President Donald Trump installed Lunday as the commandant of the Coast Guard after he fired Admiral Linda Fagan, who he claimed was too focused on "non mission critical" DEI initiatives.
Lunday has not been confirmed at the time of this report. His confirmation hearing will be later this week.
The downgrading of the swastika's categorization as a "hate symbol" to "potentially divisive" comes just days after at least 15 people were shot and killed at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia and at a time when anti-semitism is on the rise globally.
“At a time when antisemitism 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,” Rosen said of the change after it was first reported in November.
Deborah Lipstadt, a historian who was President Joe Biden's special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, called the change "terrifying."
“What’s really disturbing is, at this moment, when there is a whitewashing of Nazis amongst some on the far right, and Churchill is painted as the devil incarnate when it comes to World War II, to take the swastika and call it ‘potentially divisive’ is hard to fathom,” she said.
She added that the swastika represented the ideology that "hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and gave their lives to defeat."
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