Coast Guard No Longer Considers Swastikas and Nooses To Be ‘Hate Symbols’ – Now, Merely ‘Potentially Divisive’
Despite assurance from the Coast Guard that swastikas and nooses would remain classified as “hate symbols,” policy was quietly updated on Monday and the term “hate incident” removed altogether.
Featured image: USNS replenishment oiler, which bore the name of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, a U.S. Navy veteran; earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Milk’s name be stripped from the ship
After a report in November, a reversal, then a blatant denial by the Coast Guard that a policy change was underway: the Coast Guard has updated its policy on swastikas and nooses, placing them in a kinder, gentler light. Such symbols and flags are no longer to be considered “hate symbols; instead they are to be treated as merely “potentially divisive” – even when “co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or other bias.”
The change can be seen in the Coast Guard’s updated manual which governs harassing behavior prevention, response, and accountability. The softening of the term, published with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, quietly went into effect on Monday. Per its own update, “The terminology ‘hate incident’ is no longer present in policy.” The previous version was “canceled” the manual indicates, as of Dec. 15, 2025.
Concerns about such an outcome gained traction last month when the Washington Post reported, on Nov. 20th, that the Coast Guard planned to revise its workplace harassment policy, downgrading the classification of Nazi-era insignia, nooses and Confederate flags (display of the latter, to remain prohibited). The Trump Administration chimed in to say the report was “false.” Then the U.S. Coast Guard Acting Commandant, Adm. Kevin Lunday, issued what appeared to be a reassuring memo hours after WaPo’s report, stating: “The Coast Guard does not tolerate the display of divisive or hate symbols and flags, including those identified with oppression or hatred.”
The admiral’s memo got specific. Prohibited symbols and flags included, but were not limited to, “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.”
That position has changed.
“As antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia rise nationwide – all of which were on full display this week – any effort to soften or obscure the meaning of Nazi symbols is dangerous,” Sean Meloy, Chair of DNC LGBTQ Caucus tells GO, in response to the news. “The swastika is not ‘divisive’ — it is a symbol of genocide that targeted Jews, LGBTQ+ people, and others deemed as unworthy of existence by Nazis. As an administration that has embraced and elevated extremists, I fear this is another attempt to blur the truth and embolden them further.“
Indeed, the Nazi’s engaged in state-sponsored persecution and murder of about six million Jews during World War II; images of their swastika-decorated flags and armbands remain etched in our collective consciousness. The Nazis also rounded up thousands of LGBTQ people, mostly gay men, who were considered to be the “lowest of the low” within the hierarchy of degenerates; gay men were forced to wear an inverted pink triangle badge on their uniforms, a symbol later repurposed by the gay rights movement. Other categories of “undesirables” herded to their deaths by Nazis included disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Romanians/Roma, and Black people. More than 400,000 U.S. troops also died fighting during World War II.
Without question, the noose has been wielded over time as both a literal means to kill Black people, and chilling symbol of hate and profound racism. Used to carry out lynchings, its very presence harkens to efforts to control and terrorize people of color.
While one cannot make oneself be unaware of these things, writer and activist, Jackie Summers, sees the effort as a dated form of terror. “I think that you have people who are trying to use their grandfather’s tools in a world that’s changed, and if they think that’s going to, in any way, scare people who have historically been lynched in this country, they haven’t met any of us recently,” Summers says. “We stopped being afraid of that a long, long time ago.”
“There was a time, one two generations ago, when they could kill any one of us to try to intimidate the rest of us into sustained submission. That time has passed,” he adds. “Now, if you kill any one of us, all it does is make the rest of us galvanize.”
Summers sees outrage as useful, but not nearly as useful as empathy; this is an opportunity to create unity across the different places where people’s rights are being violated in an intersectional way. “If they’re no longer seeing nooses and swastikas as hateful, then he says, “Thank you for uniting the Jews and the Blacks.”
“Empire knows how to fight outrage. They don’t have any defense for empathy in unison. Empathy at scale is what terrifies ’empire.’ If this is what creates empathy at scale, let them keep trying to intimidate us. We’re not intimidated. We’re just galvanized.”
