5 days ago
Reports: Trump administration to rename Navy ship named for gay rights leader Harvey Milk
On Nov. 6, 2021, the U.S. Navy christened and launched a ship in San Diego Bay named for slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk.
Less than four years later, the Trump administration is ordering that the replenishment oiler USNS Harvey Milk be renamed.
U.S. officials say Navy Secretary John Phelan put together a small team to rename the replenishment oiler and that a new name is expected this month, Navy Times reported.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the next name had not yet been chosen.
CBS News first reported the proposed moniker change to the USNS Harvey Milk, which was named for the former Navy officer who later became one of the country's first openly gay elected officials, winning a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
Milk, along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated on Nov. 27, 1978, by former city supervisor Dan White.
The Navy referred all comments to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office, which provided a brief statement:
'Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief's priorities, our nation's history, and the warrior ethos,' said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. 'Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.'
Milk served as a diving officer on the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake during the Korean War, according to He left the service as a lieutenant junior grade in 1955 with a 'less than honorable' discharge 'after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation,' according to his official biography.
The reported renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk may not be the last in the U.S. Navy's fleet.
Documents obtained by CBS News also show other vessels named after prominent leaders are also on the Navy's renaming 'recommended list.'
Among them are the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Lucy Stone, USNS Cesar Chavez and USNS Medgar Evers.
It's rare for the Navy to change the name of a ship.
Two years ago, the Navy renamed the USS Chancellorsville and the USNS Maury, based on a congressional commission's recommendation to remove names linked to the Confederacy.
The Chancellorsville was renamed the USS Robert Smalls, after a former slave who captured a Confederate ship during the Civil War, and the Maury became the USNS Marie Tharp, named after a pioneering female oceanographer, according to NPR.
The order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk prompted sharp responses.
In a statement, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, said Milk 'proudly served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy' who was a 'formidable force for change' and an LGBTQ+ advocate.
'The reported decision by the Trump Administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream,' said Pelosi.
Reports of the order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk come during the first week of Pride Month.
Earlier this year, the Defense Department released a statement ending agency observances of such cultural awareness months.
'Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department's warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,' noted the release, entitled 'Identity Months Dead at DoD.'
The release directed Defense Department components and U.S. military departments to not use official resources to host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness months.
Cultural awareness months specified in the directive included: National African American/Black History Month, Women's History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and National American Indian Heritage Month.
Service members and civilians, the release noted, are permitted to attend such events in an unofficial capacity and outside of duty hours.
News surrounding the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk is the latest in a series of Trump administration actions to grab headlines across the military community.
Last month, Hegseth sent a memo instructing U.S. service academies to offer admission 'exclusively on merit' with no consideration of an applicant's race, ethnicity or sex.
'The Military Service Academies (MSA) are elite warfighting institutions with long histories of producing world class military officers,' wrote Hegseth.
'The Department owes it to our nation, our service members, and the young Americans applying to the MSAs to ensure admissions to these prestigious institutions are based exclusively on merit.'
And in January, Trump issued an executive order directing all elements of the U.S. Armed Forces to operate 'free from any preference' based on race or sex.
The president wrote that as the military's commander in chief, he is 'committed to meritocracy and to the elimination of race-based and sex-based discrimination within the Armed Forces of the United States.'
The Pentagon has also reportedly ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review their library books that address 'diversity, anti-racism or gender issues.'
