Pete Hegseth removed nine Navy officers from a promotion list last month, reshaping a slate that now sends 22 nominees forward to become one-star admirals. The revised list, published on 22 May, is all-male and overwhelmingly white, and it still awaits US Senate confirmation.
One name still on that list is Capt Sean Barbabella, whose inclusion came as the latest Navy promotion slate drew fresh scrutiny in Washington. The timing matters because the list is moving now, not later, and the changes were made before the Senate gets its turn.
The removals included women and Black service members, while four white officers were also taken off the list. That left the promotion slate with two officers who remained from the original group and raised immediate questions about who was cut and why. A Navy source said officials in the service had been very confident about the officers on the list, including those Hegseth removed.
That confidence did not answer the central problem. A Navy source said Hegseth did not explain to the service why he removed the officers, even as Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said promotions are never based on skin color or gender. Parnell said the department will never consider those factors in promotions and added that meritocracy reigns supreme under President Trump and Hegseth.
The intervention fits a broader push inside the administration to strip diversity, equity and inclusion from the military, but it also lands in a service that does not look like the slate Hegseth left behind. A 2024 government profile said more than 21% of the Navy’s active service are women and almost 40% identify with racial minority groups. Hegseth has said too many uniform leaders were promoted for the wrong reasons, including race and gender quotas, and in September he told commanders that the sooner the right people are in place, the sooner the right policies can advance.
What remains unresolved is simple and consequential: Hegseth has now shown he is willing to personally alter military promotion slates, but he has not said what made these nine officers different. Until the Senate acts, the list is only a recommendation, and the unanswered question is whether lawmakers will treat the removals as a routine personnel decision or as an extraordinary break from the way Navy promotions are supposed to work.
