Commencement speeches are meant to lift the graduates — to inspire, to steady, to remind them of the larger purpose of service. They are not meant to divide an officer corps that will soon lead Americans of every background. They are certainly not meant to deliver political lectures dressed up as military wisdom. A Secretary of Defense addressing new officers carries symbolic weight: the moment is supposed to affirm the values that bind the force together.
And yet this weekend, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered a speech that seemed to forget the audience in front of him. The graduates had earned their place through discipline and study. The speech, by contrast, seemed to arrive without much evidence of either.
It is a strange thing to lecture a diverse class — diverse in race, gender, experience, and perspective — about merit as though one’s own appointment were universally regarded as the obvious product of unmatched qualifications. There were candidates for the position with deeper experience, higher rank, and broader command credentials. The president appointed him, and Congress confirmed him, as is the constitutional process. But few serious observers would describe the selection itself as a triumph of pure meritocracy.
More troubling, many of the claims about the harms of DEI remain weakly supported by serious evidence. In fact, a substantial body of research suggests that widening the pool of qualified candidates strengthens institutions rather than weakens them. The armed forces have long understood this — and have acted on it. Cohesion, after all, is built on competence and trust, not on narrowing the ranks.
Harry Truman integrated the military in 1948. By the time my father graduated from Virginia State University in 1953, he entered the Army through an ROTC program deliberately designed to expand the pool of Black officer candidates. The country benefitted. His 20‑year career took him through three combat tours — Korea, Vietnam twice — and assignments in Thailand and West Germany during tense chapters of the Cold War. A poor Black kid from southern Virginia became a Bronze Star recipient and a lieutenant colonel because the nation made a conscious decision to widen opportunity. And the nation was stronger for it.
That is what a functional diversity program looks like: not a slogan, but a strategy.
Secretary Hegseth gave a similar speech to senior officers in Quantico last year, and it missed the mark then as well. Part of leadership is understanding the mission and the moment. Part of service is knowing when the room requires humility rather than applause lines. And part of stewardship — especially at the highest levels — is reinforcing the unity of the force, not testing its seams.
The graduates deserved a speech equal to the seriousness of their service.