Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the first woman and Hispanic person to lead the U.S. Naval Academy, is being reassigned in the latest Trump-era change at the Annapolis military college, according to USNI News.
The news site reported Thursday that Davids, who assumed her duties in January 2024, will be renominated for a third star and to serve on the staff of the chief of naval operations.
USNI News, quoting two defense officials familiar with the matter, said Marine Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte will be nominated to serve as the Naval Academy’s 66th superintendent. He now serves as deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs.
USNI News is the U.S. Naval Institute’s online news and analysis portal and is an editorially independent news and information service.
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Navy officials declined to comment on the news report Thursday.
The moves comes five months after President Donald Trump fired Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who is Black, and comes amid an administration effort to erase examples of diversity, equity and inclusion from the military and federal agencies.
A 1989 Naval Academy graduate, Davids was nominated by then-President Joe Biden to the post, viewed as a career-capping move. A native of San Antonio, she became the first Hispanic American woman to command a Navy warship after becoming commander of the USS Curts in 2007.
Senate confirmation in early 2024 came swiftly after U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama lifted a monthslong blockade of hundreds of military promotions, including Davids’, over his opposition to a Pentagon policy permitting travel cost coverage for service members and their families seeking abortions in states where it’s presently illegal.
Davids succeeded Rear Adm. Fred Kacher, who assumed command on an interim basis after the previous superintendent, Vice. Adm. Sean Buck, retired in July 2023. It had taken 178 years for a woman to lead the academy.
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Borgschulte is a 1991 Annapolis graduate. He would be the first Marine Corps officer to lead the academy in its 180-year history.
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Despite the news, Davids’ official Instagram account has continued to post photos from her duties, including two from Thursday welcoming back a Naval Academy Command & Seamanship Training Squadron cruise.
The change comes amid a flurry of changes at the academy since Trump, a Republican who has long faced questions about his views on race and has been increasingly leaning into an anti-woke agenda, returned to the White House in January.
According to an internal memo obtained by The Baltimore Banner in February, faculty at the academy were told to avoid “divisive concepts” such as systemic racism and sexism. Trump also purged many members of the academy’s Board of Visitors, deeming them too “woke” and replacing them with his own picks.
In March, the academy announced it was ending affirmative action in admissions despite previously winning a federal court case defending the practice.
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The academy then made headlines in April removing nearly 400 books on race and gender from its Nimitz Library. After public outcry, academy officials returned most of the books to circulation.
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