The Trump administration’s DEI crackdown has claimed another female victim.
U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, was fired over the weekend, according to officials who spoke to Reuters.
The Associated Press reported that Admiral Christopher Grady, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Chatfield the Trump administration wanted to take the role in a different direction.
But the officials believe there’s another reason behind her firing.
Chatfield was among 20 military leaders identified by the American Accountability Foundation as “woke ideologues” in a December 2024 letter to Pete Hegseth, then a nominee for the Pentagon’s top job.
The conservative advocacy group told Hegseth that he should purge those on the list for focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
“The woke takeover of the military is a major threat to our national security,” AAF President Thomas Jones wrote. “As global tensions rise… we cannot afford to have a military distracted and demoralized by leftist ideology. Those who were responsible for these policies being instituted in the first place must be dismissed.”
AAF targeted Chatfield over a 2015 speech at a Women’s Equality Day event where she pointed out that 80 percent of lawmakers at the time were male, adding that “it seems a bit unequal what issues go forward.”
Chatfield, a helicopter pilot, also recounted in her speech a third-grade field trip that included a flight simulator: “I learned two things from that experience: Flying is hard, but women can be pilots.”
The vice admiral, one of the few female three-star officers in the Navy and the first woman to lead the Naval War College, also said in her speech that “Our diversity is our strength”—which Hegseth has scorched as the “single dumbest phrase in military history.”
Chatfield’s firing is the latest high-profile termination to rock the Pentagon following the removal of General Timothy Haugh, chief of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first female Chief of Naval Operations.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Chatfield’s firing “disgraceful” and demanded an explanation from Hegseth and President Donald Trump.
“The silence from my Republican colleagues is deeply troubling,” he said in a statement. “In less than three months, President Trump has fired 10 generals and admirals without explanation, including our most experienced combat leaders. I cannot fathom how anyone could stand silently by while the President causes great harm to our military and our nation.”
