Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a highly rare move that will strip the ship of the moniker of a slain gay rights activist who served as a sailor during the Korean War.
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. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the next name had not yet been chosen.
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WATCH HEREThe change was laid out in an internal memo that officials said defended the action as a move to align with President Donald Trump and Hegseth's objectives to “re-establish the warrior culture.”
It marks the latest move by Hegseth and the wider Trump administration to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion. And it comes during Pride Month — the same timing as the Pentagon’s campaign to force transgender troops out of the U.S. military.
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SIGN UP Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement that 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.”
The decision was first reported by Military.com. Phelan's office did not respond to a request for comment.
The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.
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Milk, who was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie, served for four years in the Navy before he was forced out for being gay. He later became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office.
Milk served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing and employment. It passed, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone signed it into law.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk’s bill.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat representing San Francisco, said in a statement Tuesday that "this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos. Instead, it is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also slammed the move, saying Milk was a Korean War combat veteran whose commander called him “outstanding.”
“Stripping his name from a Navy ship won’t erase his legacy as an American icon, but it does reveal Trump’s contempt for the very values our veterans fight to protect,” the Democrat wrote on X.
The ship was christened in 2021, and during the ceremony, then-Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said he wanted to be at the event “not just to amend the wrongs of the past, but to give inspiration to all of our LGBTQ community leaders who served in the Navy, in uniform today and in the civilian workforce as well, too, and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future.”
The ship is operated by Military Sealift Command, with a crew of about 125 civilian mariners. The Navy says it conducted its first resupply mission at sea in fall 2024, while operating in the Virginia Capes. It continued to resupply Navy ships at sea off the East Coast until it began scheduled maintenance at Alabama Shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, earlier this year.
While the renaming is rare, the Biden administration also changed the names of two Navy ships in 2023 as part of the effort to remove Confederate names from U.S. military installations.
The USS Chancellorsville — named for the Civil War battle — was renamed the USS Robert Smalls after a sailor and former enslaved person. And the USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship originally named after a Confederate sailor, was renamed the USNS Marie Tharp after a geologist and oceanographic cartographer who created the first scientific maps of the Atlantic Ocean floor.
Maritime lore hints as to why renaming ships is so unusual, suggesting that changing a name is bad luck and tempts retribution from the sea gods.
Stuart Milk, executive chair of the Harvey Milk Foundation and Milk's nephew, released the following statement on behalf of the Milk family and foundation:
We are heartbroken to hear that there is a recommendation at the Pentagon to remove my uncle’s name from the USNS Harvey Milk. I recently had the honor of spending three days and nights aboard the ship with the men and women who serve our country, and I was there as the ship replenished, while underway at sea, the Destroyer Squadron (DESRON2) accompanying the USS Gerald Ford in the Atlantic Ocean. The pride that all the men and women on those ships - gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic, commissioned officers and enlisted personnel - all of them, without exception, expressed and relayed to me, was a testament to the American spirit of patriotism and respect for our nation's collective history of growth.
Uncle Harvey did not set out to have a US Naval Ship, or anything else, named after him. He did not set out in pursuit of glory or fame. Rather, guided by passion, commitment, and hard work, he did set out to be a messenger of hope for all who had been marginalized and even criminalized, just for being who they authentically were. Harvey Milk was an uncle, a public servant, a son, a veteran, a brother, a teacher, a decorated Naval instructor, and a historic elected official. In the prime of his public service career, he was silenced by another who ultimately tried to erase him. His legacy since that brutal assassination has sustained a message of hope, hope unashamed, hope unafraid, hope that will not be silenced, and hope that simply cannot be erased. My uncle's life story, his service in the Navy, as a teacher, as a Broadway producer, in local government, and in leading a statewide equality campaign, has continued to stir the hope and aspirations of millions across the globe. His legacy has stood as a proud and bright light for the men and women who serve in our nation's military - including those who have served on the USNS Harvey Milk - and a reminder that no barriers of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or physical infirmity will restrain their human spirit.
Harvey Milk's legacy is certainly enhanced and celebrated by a US Naval Ship, however his legacy will not be silenced or diminished by the renaming of that Naval ship. Rather such an action would only serve to prove that Harvey Milk style hope will continue to endure and inspire across the globe, and that neither bullets nor name stripping can stop Harvey's overriding message to us all - when he prophetically anticipated making the ultimate sacrifice: "Let the bullets that enter my brain, destroy every closet door". "You gotta give 'em hope."
