Senator pauses Coast Guard nomination over policy on swastikas, nooses and other hate symbols

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. senator said Wednesday that she is pausing the nomination for the top Coast Guard job because leaders appeared to have “backtracked” on a commitment to ensure that swastikas and nooses are considered hate symbols and prohibited from being displayed.

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said Adm. Kevin Lunday’s nomination for Coast Guard commandant is on hold until she has clear answers.

“As it appears that Admiral Lunday may have backtracked on his commitment to me to combat antisemitism and hate crimes and protect all members of the Coast Guard,” Rosen posted on social media, “I will be placing a hold on his nomination until the Coast Guard provides answers.”

The situation is the last development in the Coast Guard’s revision of its policy on swastikas, nooses and other hate symbols, which has sparked an uproar. It comes as antisemitism has been on the rise, including a mass shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people Sunday.

The Coast Guard’s planned policy change emerged publicly last month. It called symbols like swastikas and nooses “potentially divisive.” The new policy stopped short of banning them, instead saying that commanders could take steps to remove them from public view and that the rule did not apply to private spaces, such as family housing.

It was a shift from a yearslong policy that said such symbols were “widely identified with oppression or hatred” and called their display “a potential hate incident.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, said there “was never a ‘downgrade’” in policy language.

Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said in a statement that the change in fact “strengthens our ability to report, investigate, and prosecute those who violate longstanding policy.”

“The symbols listed in the policy include, but are not limited to, nooses, swastikas, and any symbols or flags that have been adopted by hate-based groups to represent supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, antisemitism, or any other form of bias,” McLaughlin said.

When the changes first emerged, Rosen and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who lead a bipartisan antisemitism task force, pressed the Coast Guard for more information. The Coast Guard then released a memo in late November to make clear that “hate symbols and flags are prohibited.”

The Coast Guard, however, is sticking with the language that describes the display of nooses or swastikas as “potentially divisive” in the final policy published this week, according to a person familiar with the situation who was unauthorized to discuss it and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Coast Guard has insisted that the final policy is superseded by Lunday’s memo that ensured such symbols would be “prohibited,” the person said. But the final version of the new policy retains the wording that calls those items “potentially divisive.”

The Washington Post first reported on the new policy moving forward.