WASHINGTON – A U.S. senator announced on Wednesday her decision to halt the nomination process for the top position in the Coast Guard, citing concerns that the leadership has seemingly retreated from a promise to classify swastikas and nooses as hate symbols, thus banning their display.

Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen from Nevada has stated that she will delay Adm. Kevin Lunday’s appointment as the Coast Guard commandant until she receives definitive responses regarding this issue.

“Given that it appears Admiral Lunday may have reversed his promise to tackle antisemitism and hate crimes, and to safeguard all Coast Guard members,” Rosen shared on social media, “I will be putting a hold on his nomination until the Coast Guard delivers satisfactory answers.”

This controversy is the latest chapter in the Coast Guard’s contentious policy review concerning swastikas, nooses, and similar hate symbols. The issue has become more pressing amid a noted rise in antisemitism, highlighted by a mass shooting targeting Jews during Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, which resulted in 15 fatalities on Sunday.

The Coast Guard’s proposed policy adjustment became public last month. It described symbols like swastikas and nooses as “potentially divisive” but fell short of an outright ban. Instead, it suggested commanders could opt to remove them from public areas, noting that the rule does not extend to private spaces, including family housing.

It was a shift from a yearslong policy that said such symbols were “widely identified with oppression or hatred” and called their display “a potential hate incident.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, said there “was never a ‘downgrade’” in policy language.

Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said in a statement that the change in fact “strengthens our ability to report, investigate, and prosecute those who violate longstanding policy.”

“The symbols listed in the policy include, but are not limited to, nooses, swastikas, and any symbols or flags that have been adopted by hate-based groups to represent supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, antisemitism, or any other form of bias,” McLaughlin said.

When the changes first emerged, Rosen and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who lead a bipartisan antisemitism task force, pressed the Coast Guard for more information. The Coast Guard then released a memo in late November to make clear that “hate symbols and flags are prohibited.”

The Coast Guard, however, is sticking with the language that describes the display of nooses or swastikas as “potentially divisive” in the final policy published this week, according to a person familiar with the situation who was unauthorized to discuss it and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Coast Guard has insisted that the final policy is superseded by Lunday’s memo that ensured such symbols would be “prohibited,” the person said. But the final version of the new policy retains the wording that calls those items “potentially divisive.”

The Washington Post first reported on the new policy moving forward.