The Dismantling of Black Policy Power

The Purge at the Top: Targeting Excellence in the Pentagon ​

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth targeted high-ranking military leadership, the pattern of removals was striking. Nearly sixty percent of the senior officers sidelined, fired, or stripped from promotion lists were Black or female, despite Black and female service members accounting for fewer than twenty percent of all active-duty generals and admirals. ​As recently highlighted on Antonia Hylton’s The Assignment, these actions are not about meritocracy. These purges specifically target highly qualified Black, female, and transgender officers who spent decades scaling the ranks of military leadership. Under the guise of an anti-diversity mandate, the administration treats identity as an immediate disqualifier rather than an institutional strength. 

The irony remains sharp as a Secretary without executive command experience declares career flag officers unqualified based on their identity and commitment to equity. ​This dynamic is not an isolated incident. It serves as an executive branch preview of a broader project aimed at stripping Black Americans, and Black women in particular, of real policy-making power across the nation. 

​Project 2025: The Blueprint to Erase Black Governance ​

The attacks on senior military leaders match the broader strategy outlined in Project 2025. This document serves as a detailed blueprint to centralize executive authority, dismantle civil service protections, and systematically undermine Black political and institutional power. ​Project 2025 seeks to replace career civil servants with vetted political loyalists. 

Because Black Americans, particularly Black women, have historically utilized civil service and public administration as pathways to middle-class stability and policy influence, gutting these positions strips Black leaders of institutional authority. Furthermore, by dismantling diversity and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies, Project 2025 removes foundational protections against racial and gender discrimination. ​The blueprint also targets the mechanics of voting and democratic representation. 

Project 2025 explicitly seeks to restrict voting access, limit federal oversight under the Voting Rights Act, and politicize census data collection. Underrepresenting Black communities directly shrinks federal funding allocations and dilutes legislative representation. For Black women, who consistently vote at high rates and anchor democratic participation, the underlying mandate is clear: remove them from leadership, ignore their policy priorities, and disenfranchise their communities. 

​The Ohio Parallel: Unconstitutional Gerrymandering and Supermajority Control ​

This strategy is not unique to Washington, as the federal blueprint draws heavily on tactics previously tested in states like Ohio. ​Ohio serves as a premier case study for how structural minority rule functions in practice. Despite the state Supreme Court repeatedly declaring legislative district maps unconstitutional, state Republicans utilized gerrymandered boundaries to secure veto-proof supermajorities in both the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate. ​This state-level infrastructure actively works to disenfranchise Black women across multiple fronts. 

District lines in urban centers such as Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton are carved up to dilute the collective voting power of Black communities, neutralizing their voice in the General Assembly. With a supermajority insulated from competitive elections, the state legislature routinely bypasses the needs of Black women. From maternal health funding and childcare access to reproductive freedom and criminal justice reform, the supermajority enacts policies directly hostile to Black families. ​Just as federal executive power is used to block the promotion of Black and female officers, Ohio's gerrymandered system creates structural blockades that prevent Black leadership from converting grassroots organizing into statewide policy reform. ​

The Unified Threat ​

The purges in the Pentagon and the unconstitutional maps in Columbus share a core objective of neutralizing Black institutional power. Whether through executive order or legislative line-drawing, the primary goal remains to insulate power from demographic change and silence the voices of Black women in leadership. ​To counter this, public reporting and community organizing must focus on the structural links connecting these state and federal efforts. Exposing these tactics serves as the vital first step toward restoring real representation. ​

Miss Cynthia Brown is the Founder & CEO of the Heartbeat Movement Inc., founder, of theThe Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity Committee, and Chair of Protecting Ohioans' Constitutional Rights. Following profound personal loss, Miss Cynthia Brown transformed grief into historic, systemic advocacy. She spearheaded landmark federal civil rights litigation in Brown v. Yost, establishing vital First Amendment protections for citizen-led ballot initiative campaigns across the United States. As a Youngstown native who majored in Media Communications, she leads statewide nonpartisan coalitions of impacted families, advocates, and civil rights leaders dedicated to eliminating legal immunities, safeguarding fundamental constitutional liberties, and securing institutional accountability for all citizens.