Following fierce backlash, the U.S. Coast Guard has reversed course on enacting a new harassment policy designating swastikas and nooses as “potentially divisive.”
The change came hours after questions emerged from a Washington Post report on Nov. 20 about the policy, completed under Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the branch, that reclassified and downgraded the symbols.
The updated memo outlining the new policy now prohibits the displays of swastikas, nooses and “any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, antisemitism or any other improper bias.”
It classifies such symbols as “divisive or hate symbols.”
“These are quintessential symbols of hate, not merely ‘divisive symbols,’ nor abstract icons,” read a bipartisan statement from the co-chairs of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism.
“By eliminating the terminology of ‘hate incident’ symbols at a time of rising antisemitism and increasing hate, the Coast Guard risks emboldening those who seek to intimidate or target Jewish Americans, black Americans and other minority communities,” it stated.
The co-chairs added that the change would send “a chilling signal to American Jews at a moment when antisemitic incidents have already hit record highs in the United States.”
The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which initially denied the Post report’s claim that any policy change had been made. Coast Guard officials then stated that the service would be “reviewing the language” of the policy.
