Hegseth championed diversity in Harvard masters policy brief
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously championed diversity in a 2013 policy brief for Havard’s Kennedy School before knocking it as a crutch for minorities during his current stint in the Trump administration.
As a master’s student, Hegseth produced a 47-page brief that advocated for the creation of a multicultural STEM school in Minnesota, according to reports.
“Ensuring low-income and minority children have the same opportunities as more affluent majority students is an essential goal and worth pursuing with vigor and substantial investment,” Hegseth wrote almost 12 years ago, according to The Boston Globe, which reviewed the brief.
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“Our country and state must strive for equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, class, geography, or gender,” he added.
The detailed proposal heavily included comments from Democrats, including the late Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, whom he referenced as a “political champion,” as reported by The Harvard Crimson.
Hortman was killed during a home invasion earlier this year, in which the intruder impersonated a police officer during a politically motivated attack.
The former Minnesota House Speaker was one of multiple party members cited in the piece that promoted the ideal school’s “geographic quotas” and implementation of measures that would “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, according to the Crimson.
“This STEM school would increase equal educational access for Minnesotans of all background,” he added.
The rhetoric sharply differs from his present day push to weed out the military’s “woke agenda.”
Last week, during a speech to top military leaders in Quantico, Va., alongside President Trump, Hegseth said, “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts.”
“Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading and we lost our way. We became the woke department. But not anymore,” he added.
The Defense secretary said the notion that “diversity is our strength” was an “insane fallacy” and suggested unity be promoted instead.
“This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris,” Hegseth said.
“As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that s—. I’ve made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal,” he continued.
Similar remarks made by the leader earlier this year drew criticism from Black veterans.
Despite reports citing Hegseth’s 2013 policy brief, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell has said the secretary’s views have not changed.
“His views from 2013 are consistent with his views now as Secretary of War: meritocracy should reign supreme over woke ideology and DEI,” Parnell said in a statement to The Hill.
He later suggested Hegseth was told to write from a “bipartisan” perspective, which professors at Harvard denied.
In recent years, Hegseth has distanced himself from the nation’s oldest institution, arguing the lessons taught there did not further his educational outlook.
“Harvard was horrible,” Hegseth said in a 2024 podcast. “I got dumber.”
In 2022, during a live “Fox & Friends” show, he said he would send back his degree and wrote “return to sender” on his diploma.