In his first nine months as Secretary of Defense, Pete B. Hegseth has railed against “woke garbage” and purged department materials of any mention of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
But in 2013, as a Harvard Kennedy School masters student, Hegseth advocated for the creation of a public high school in Minnesota that would “emphasize equity” and prioritize a “diverse student body.”
A 47-page policy brief written by Hegseth, obtained by The Crimson and first reported by the Boston Globe, calls for the creation of a public, selective STEM high school in Minnesota — with the broader goal of making the United States competitive in the international technology race.
In his recommendations for the school, Hegseth called for admitting students by “geographic quotas” — allocating a certain number of spots to each congressional district — and taking steps to “ensure a balance of race, class, gender, and geography is maintained.”
“Framed correctly, a STEM high school would complement — not compete with — existing efforts to promote women and minorities in STEM,” Hegseth wrote in his paper. “This STEM school would increase equal educational access for Minnesotans of all background.”
But at the helm of the Defense Department, Hegseth vowed to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the military. He told Pentagon staff in February that “diversity is our strength” was the “single dumbest phrase in military history.” Since then, he has directed service academies to admit solely on merit, removed diversity, equity, and inclusion content from Pentagon materials, and purged nearly 400 military library books that mentioned DEI.
And last Tuesday, Hegseth changed the military’s physical fitness requirements to hold all service members to the “highest male standard,” he announced in a speech at a Marine Corps base in Virginia.
“If women can make it, excellent,” Hegseth told a crowd of military commanders. “If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote in an emailed statement that there is no daylight between Hegseth’s 2013 paper and his current positions.
“His views from 2013 are consistent with his views now as Secretary of War: meritocracy should reign supreme over woke ideology and DEI,” Parnell wrote.
Before and after his time at HKS, Hegseth has struck a hard-right tone. As an undergraduate at Princeton University, he wrote for and served as publisher of The Princeton Tory, where he criticized same-sex marriage and the “gratuitous glorification of diversity.” Later, in his decade at Fox News, Hegseth defended Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and suggested sending in troops to quell Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle.
The Kennedy School paper took a decidedly different tack.
In his paper, Hegseth also lauded Democrat Melissa A. Hortman, describing the Minnesota state representative as the “political champion” of the effort to bolster STEM offerings. While writing the paper, Hegseth interviewed Hortman and exchanged emails with her.
“Most importantly, Rep. Hortman emphasizes – quite correctly – that if a STEM school debate becomes a traditional education battle of left versus right, the idea will never come to fruition,” Hegseth wrote of her advocacy.
Hortman, a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School’s Mid-Career Master in Public Administration program, was assassinated in a politically motivated shooting in June.
Hegseth produced the 2013 paper on behalf of client organization Center for American Experiment, a Minnesota-based think tank where he was a senior fellow. The group’s founder, Mitch Pearlstein, defended Hegseth’s paper in an interview, and said he still thought it was a “good piece of work.”
But Pearlstein acknowledged the inconsistency between Hegseth, the bipartisan-minded education advocate, and Hegseth, the Department of War ideologue.
“Most of those people in the bibliography, people he had interviews with and conversations with and emails from — they’re overwhelmingly Democrats,” Pearlstein said of Hegseth’s paper.
Hegseth has since distanced himself from the University. In a 2022 appearance on Fox & Friends, Hegseth joked that Harvard should be renamed “critical theory university” and wrote “Return to Sender” across his degree.
Pearlstein said Hegseth “certainly is confident” in his new role, but wouldn’t comment further on Hegseth’s leadership.
Read more on The Harvard Crimson
