Navy change-of-command ceremonies are scripted affairs — dress white uniforms replete with ribbons and medals, crisp salutes and ritual words passing on responsibility for a chunk of the nation’s security.
That was on display Friday in Annapolis, when Marine Lt. Gen. Mike Borgschulte relieved Vice Adm. Yvette Davids as Naval Academy superintendent some two years early. It was the same, and yet, well, a little different.
Maybe even a little subversive.
“This leadership laboratory, as we call it, it’s working,” Davids said. “We are creating ethical war fighters who are critical thinkers, problem solvers.”
That’s not what President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan want you to believe.
They describe the Naval Academy and the other service academies as wellsprings of “woke,” a noun reinvented by conservatives to belittle critical thinking that goes where reactionary forces fear to tread.
Davids, the first female and first Hispanic superintendent, was an easy target. Removing her was just a step in a clearly delineated plan to turn back progress that’s been made toward true equality and the freedom and strength it promises.
So, they knocked her from the heights of Navy service, a job offered only to a top few. Phelan, in his remarks Friday, suggested that her new role as deputy chief of naval operations was a promotion befitting her unique skills.
That’s a masterstroke of doublespeak, but the secretary let slip the real reason.
In praising Borgschulte’s combat record, but not Davids’, he reminded listeners who Trump and Hegseth see as warriors and leaders.
Davids is the third woman removed as a service academy superintendent under this president, and Trump fired Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, only the second Black general to hold the post.
In their world, the person best suited for developing the minds of thousands of Navy and Marine Corps leaders is a tall, male Marine and not a petite, Mexican American woman.
Oh, how Yvette Davids proved them wrong.
In her 19 months as superintendent, Davids earned the admiration of midshipmen and the institution she graduated from and — after more than 30 years at sea and on shore — had returned to lead.
She may have disappointed those who called on her to resign in protest over budding authoritarianism, but she was clear about the reason. She needed to lead through difficult times, not leave them to someone else.
On the way out the door, Davids wasn’t going to let anyone denigrate Annapolis or those who have made it the top-rated service academy.
“Most people likely don’t see the natural institutional tension that comes with balancing a midshipman’s development,” she said.
As Phelan sat nearby, seemingly oblivious to the thorn among the roses, Davids offered her defense in the form of praise.
“Every minute of a midshipman’s day, every ounce of effort, is in the pursuit of developing these enthusiastic and driven young people into the well-rounded warriors our nation needs who excel in all dimensions — moral, mental and physical,” Davids said. “If we distill this down to its essence, we develop leaders of character and competence. And by every measure, we excel at doing it.”
In Phelan’s plan, Dean Samara Firebaugh seems next up for removal. Davids made clear she sees the dean as an example of excellence.
“A true civilian sailor, I look to you for insightfulness and collaboration,” Davids said, praising the dean. “And your mission to inculcate warfighting at every turn defines your warrior scholar ethos.”
She expressed admiration for the faculty that Phelan wants to remake and the results that an academy supposedly hobbled by DEI and other wokeisms delivered.
“It helps attract our nation’s best and brightest who have the desire to serve and the propensity to excel in our increasingly technologically advanced Navy and Marine Corps,” Davids said.
“When the academics, professional development and athletics are all aligned, this place just hums.”
I’ve studied Davids from the day former President Joe Biden nominated her, just in time to lead the academy’s celebration of the 50 years since the first 80 women were admitted at Annapolis.
I saw her grace and professionalism as an Alabama senator delayed her confirmation with a political stunt, her diplomacy toward thin-skinned members of Congress carping about a guest lecturer critical of then-candidate Trump, and the roiling idiocies coming from the Pentagon and the White House.
Through it all, she did everything the civilian leadership asked of her. And still she was pushed out.
There were no tears on Friday, no mention of the men responsible for the disgraceful way she’s been treated. Perhaps, you could read anger into Davids’ body language or the tenor of her voice.
I doubt the admiral would ever comment on the notion.
Some in the audience understood what Davids was saying. Former superintendents and Navy secretaries, classmates, senior officers and civilians crowded into Dahlgren Hall — and Borgschulte jokingly wondered who was minding the Pentagon.
In her parting words, Davids offered best wishes for her successor and again expressed pride in her staff.
Her praise, never faint or muted, offered the closest thing we may ever hear about how Davids views the orders that denied her a well-deserved cap to a notable career.
“Leading as superintendent of our beloved Naval Academy has been the privilege and the adventure of a lifetime,” the Class of ’89 graduate said, as her husband, retired Rear Adm. Keith Davids, and her sons, sister and mother looked on.
The audience offered her two standing ovations. She tapped her chest in gratitude.
That’s how Annapolis should remember Davids’ history-making tour as superintendent: with optimism.
Most Naval Academy grads want to protect the institution. In the face of overweening attempts to remake it into something less, that may yet prove its salvation.
“This is a place that inspires and imbues optimism,” Davids said, “in every single person who walks, attends, visits and works on this Yard.”
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