WASHINGTON – The U.S. Coast Guard is poised to change some of its language and policies surrounding the display of hate symbols like swastikas and nooses as well as how personnel report hate incidents.

A Coast Guard message in 2020 from then-Commandant Karl Schultz said symbols like swastikas and nooses were “widely identified with oppression or hatred” and called their display “a potential hate incident.” The Coast Guard policy dated this month calls those same symbols “potentially divisive.”

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The new policy maintains a yearslong prohibition on publicly displaying the Confederate flag outside of a handful of situations, such as educational or historical settings. However, it does not outright prohibit the public display of any other “potentially divisive” symbols.

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