Author: Phil Stewart and Idris Ali
PRINCETON, N.J. (Reuters) – Laura Petrillo still remembers the day on the campus of Princeton University in 2002 when she had an affair with Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon. A heated argument.
She was putting up posters for Princeton Women’s Leadership, a feminist organization better known by its acronym “OWL.” She said Hegseth and his friends from the Princeton Conservative, the conservative campus newspaper, tore down her poster and put up their own, leading to a verbal altercation.
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Such conflicts among idealistic college students are not uncommon.
But for Hegseth, publisher of The Tory and the school’s most prominent conservative at the time, the incident was one of several examples of his confrontation with modern feminism on campus, dozens of which Reuters has investigated. Years ago he opposed initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion in the U.S. military. Reuters interviewed more than a dozen former students, faculty and staff at the school to outline his time at Princeton University from 1999 to 2003.
A spokesman for Hegseth did not respond to questions about this and other incidents described in this article. Asked about Hegers’ experience at Princeton, a university spokesman said he had no comment.
Hegseth’s views on diversity in the U.S. military, including the role of women, are likely to be a focus of Tuesday’s confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
While his recent past has been closely scrutinized by the media, his college years have received less attention.
Under Heggs’ watch, the Conservatives published a cover story in 2002 that placed a cartoon owl in the scope, and then on a third page, appeared to show the same owl with three bullets in its head. hole, blood dripping on the ground.
“It felt threatening,” said Petrillo, OWL’s publicity chairman at the time.
The Tory article was titled: “Killing Feminism: OWL Undermining the Women’s Movement.”
As a publisher, Hegseth published other articles calling homosexuality “abnormal and immoral” and arguing that sex with an unconscious woman would not be a “clear case of rape” because there would be no coercion. He wrote an article attacking what he saw as Princeton’s “gratuitous celebration of diversity.”
Brittany Hume Charm recalled an event where she said the OWL tried to bury the hatchet with Hegseth, but failed. Seems to be dismissive of OWL’s concerns. His unusual decision to appear in uniform seemed intended to intimidate, she recalled.
Reuters spoke to two former classmates who described Hegers as friendly and willing to laugh at himself. They pointed to a paintball duel on campus between Hegseth and the leader of the College Democrats as an example of how he didn’t take himself too seriously.
Judson Wallace, a friend who played with him on the Princeton basketball team, said Hegseth was hard-working, caring and “the best player who never played basketball” because he wasn’t The team’s starter.
Tessa Muir, a former Army captain who served under Hegseth in the ROTC program, had a positive opinion of Hegseth while at Princeton, saying he “friendly”. But she said she was also alarmed by his recent comments against women in combat, but has softened his stance as he seeks a Senate vote to confirm.
“I felt cheated that he was put in charge of co-ed cadets,” Muir recalled thinking when she learned of Hegseth’s views.
Muir became an Army attorney and served in various positions, including in Korea.
rape case
In an interview with Reuters, Thema Bryant, who headed the Princeton office to combat and respond to sexual assault from 2001 to 2004, criticized the 2002 edition of the Hegseth Conservatives for a freshman orientation course on sexual assault. Course raised objections.
The course included a scene in which a student was drunk unconscious and then raped. A Conservative article said this did not amount to an obvious case of rape because she was not under duress because she was unconscious.
While she doesn’t remember seeing the article at the time, Bryant said Hegseth should apologize for his insensitivity to survivors.
“If you’re talking about (the Department of Defense), we have to wonder who are you trying to defend? Who are you trying to protect? Can you be trusted to do that?” she asked.
Sexual assault is a long-standing problem in the military.
When asked about sexual assaults on campus that occurred during Hegers’ time at Princeton, a university spokesman cited Department of Education data to Reuters that showed 28 incidents occurred on Princeton’s campus between 2001 and 2003. A forced crime occurred.
His father, Brian Hegseth, told Reuters that Hegseth came to Princeton with an affection for the military and conservative-leaning views and values.
“He didn’t just follow the crowd, but he thought it through and believed that what he already had was worth keeping,” he said.
His role as a conservative leader on campus sometimes made him the butt of jokes.
An old joke about Hegseth began circulating among Princeton University alumni after Trump nominated him to lead the Pentagon in November. When he was a senior, he appeared in a campus humor magazine that quoted an “Indian girl” overheard talking to another girl about how Hegseth seemed to be a good guy.
“Yeah, but you know he really wants to send you and your family back to India, right?” a second student responded in the December 2002 edition of Nassau Weekly magazine.
After graduating from Princeton University in 2003, Hegseth served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has two Bronze Stars. He received his master’s degree from Harvard University in 2013.
But as reports about his past surfaced, Hegseth faced what he said was a media smear campaign, including a 2021 incident, first reported by Reuters, in which an Army National Guard member called him an “internal threaten” . Hegseth said the incident led to him being relieved of his guard duty in Washington during President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
He has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the 2017 sexual assault allegation, as well as allegations that he drank excessively and mismanaged the finances of a veterans organization that did not lead to the charges. Hegseth’s mother defended him, retracting an email in which she criticized his treatment of women during one of his two divorces.
Just like his days at Princeton, Hegseth considered himself a failure, and this time, he worked hard to become secretary of defense. He compared it to his time on the Princeton basketball team, when he was often on the bench and “told I wasn’t good enough to play.”
“I’m used to people coming at me,” he told Sirius XM radio.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Don Durfee and Claudia Parsons)
