Coast Guard Removes “Hate Symbol” Designations Despite Assurances It Wouldn’t

The Coast Guard’s new workplace harassment manual, which no longer classifies nooses and swastikas as hate symbols, quietly went into effect on Monday.

The Washington Post was the first to report about the planned changes, in mid-November. The Trump White House derided that reporting as “false,” and just hours later — after the proposed updates were met with widespread outcry — military officials released a memo claiming that the symbols would remain banned.

However, that memo appears to have been ignored entirely in the new manual, which classifies swastikas and nooses not as overt hate symbols but only as “potentially divisive.”

The word “hate” now appears only three times within the manual. In one of those instances, the word is used to explain that “the terminology ‘hate incident’ is no longer present” in the Coast Guard’s policies.

The manual also notes that “any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, or other bias” are now to be treated as “potentially divisive symbols.”

The new manual also places restrictions on how higher-ups can respond to displays of what were previously classified as hate symbols. In the past, when such an image was found in Coast Guard facilities, a commander could take immediate action, removing the symbol and disciplining the officer responsible.

The new manual, however, requires a step-by-step process to remove such symbols, requiring “commanders, commanding officers, officers-in-charge, and supervisors” to consult with “servicing legal offices” when nooses, swastikas, or other white supremacist imagery is found. After that review, they “may order or direct the removal” of individuals who displayed such symbols.

The word “may” means their removal is not required, and is left to the discretion of those higher-ups.

The new guidelines also shrink the timeframe in which a person can report harassment based on “potentially divisive” symbols.

“Except in cases involving allegations of sexual harassment, reports must be made within forty-five (45) calendar days of an incident or in the case of a series of incidents, the most recent incident, with discretion for reports to be accepted beyond this time frame,” the policy states.

The previous standard allowed for an indefinite amount of time to report on hate symbols.

When the changes were first reported on last month, critics noted that reporting white supremacist imagery within such a narrow timeframe was not always feasible, especially in closed quarters.

“If you are at sea, and your shipmate has a swastika in their rack, and you are a Black person or Jew, and you are going to be stuck at sea with them for the next 60 days, are you going to feel safe reporting that up your chain of command?” an anonymous Coast Guard official said to The Washington Post at the time.

“We don’t deserve the trust of the nation if we’re unclear about the divisiveness of swastikas,” that same official said.

The swastika is the best-known symbol of Nazi Germany, which systemically murdered 6 million Jewish people and millions of others during the Holocaust. The symbol remains widely recognized as an emblem of antisemitism.

Critics lambasted the changes to the harassment manual.

“As hate and antisemitism rise through our nation, this Admin should be ashamed for downplaying the meaning of these symbols,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said on Bluesky.

“The confusion and contradiction that surrounds this debacle needs to be fixed completely and comprehensively, without any legalese,” Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Connecticut) said in a press release issued by his office.

“The swastika was the symbol hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and gave their lives to defeat. It is not ‘potentially divisive,’ it’s a hate symbol,” historian Deborah Lipstadt toldThe Washington Post this week.