The Coast Guard released a new policy directive that lifted a longstanding ban on the display of symbols like nooses and swastikas, as first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.
For years, Coast Guard policy declared that incidents of hate and prejudice—such as displaying a noose, swastika, or Confederate flag—”have no place in the Coast Guard.” Recognizing that its policy on harassing behavior was insufficient to address this category of misconduct, the service implemented special procedures for reporting and resolving hate incidents.
But a new policy directive signed on November 13 by the Coast Guard’s assistant commandant for personnel, Rear Adm. Charles E. Fosse, eliminated those procedures and declared that the term “hate incident” is “no longer present in policy.”
Among other changes, the new policy downgrades swastikas and nooses from hate symbols to merely “potentially divisive” symbols and specifically allows symbols “widely identified with oppression or hatred” to be displayed in private spaces outside public view, including military housing.
It also raises the threshold for disciplinary action by providing that publicly displaying a symbol or flag constitutes misconduct only if it is shown to affect “good order and discipline, unit cohesion, command climate, morale, or mission effectiveness.”
Excerpt from November 2025 U.S. Coast Guard policy document, Page 36
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.
Excerpt from February 2023 U.S. Coast Guard policy document, Page 21
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-Semetic 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
A Coast Guard official, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, called the policy changes chilling. “We don’t deserve the trust of the nation if we’re unclear about the divisiveness of swastikas,” the official told The Washington Post.
Changes Raise Concerns
Lawmakers and others expressed concern about the changes in response to the Post’s report. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) cautioned that the new Coast Guard policy “could allow for horrifically hateful symbols like swastikas and nooses to be inexplicably permitted to be displayed.”
“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,” he said in a statement to The Post.
Rabbi Jonah Pesner, the director of the advocacy arm of the Reform Movement, one of the major branches of U.S. Judaism, said in a letter that “the values that the Coast Guard is sworn to uphold do not allow a permissive attitude toward hate symbols.”
“There is no context aside from the educational or historical in which a swastika is not a hate symbol…It is an emblem that has no place in the U.S. Coast Guard or anywhere else,” Rabbi Pesner wrote. “The decision to weaken these standards is an indelible stain on the Coast Guard and a violation of the good that our nation stands for.”
“Lynching is a federal hate crime,” Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “The world defeated the Nazis in 1945. The debate on these symbols is over. They symbolize hate.”
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, condemned what he called a “vile and horrific” policy. “Swastikas and nooses aren’t ‘potentially divisive’; they are longstanding and well known representations of genocide and lynchings,” he said in a statement.
On Thursday night, the Coast Guard released a memorandum signed by Adm. Kevin Lunday, the service’s acting commandant, stating that “divisive or hate symbols and flags” including a noose, a swastika, and the Confederate battle flag, are “prohibited” and “shall be removed from all Coast Guard workplaces, facilities, and assets.”
Observers noted the memo did not address why the new policy’s language permits private displays or why it eliminated the “hate incident” provisions.
The Coast Guard falls under the Department of Homeland Security, which initially denied the policy change, according to CNN. On Saturday, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said that private displays of hate symbols are still prohibited. “The display of divisive and hate symbols, including in private, violates our core values and has no place in the Coast Guard,” she said.
Questions Remain
The Coast Guard’s subsequent clarifications leave a number of unanswered questions about the impact of the new policy that is set to go into force on December 15.
Admiral Lunday said in a statement that any display, use, or promotion of symbols like nooses and swastikas “will be thoroughly investigated and severely punished.”
But neither the Coast Guard nor DHS has explained why it eliminated the “hate incident” procedures, which were developed to respond to hate incidents that “may not be targeted at a particular individual, and thus, may not constitute harassing behavior.”
The new policy specifically directs that “[c]onduct previously handled as a potential hate incident, including those involving symbols widely identified with oppression or hatred, is processed as a report of harassment”—which raises the threshold for proving that the display of hate symbols merits punishment.