By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
PRINCETON, New Jersey (Reuters) – Laura Petrillo still remembers the day in 2002 on the Princeton campus when she got into a heated argument with Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon.
She put up posters for Princeton’s Organization of Women Leaders, a feminist group better known by the acronym OWL. Hegseth and his friends at the college’s conservative newspaper, The Princeton Tory, tore down her posters and put up their own, leading to a verbal altercation, she says.
Such conflicts between idealist students are not uncommon.
But for Hegseth, a Tory publisher and the school’s best-known conservative at the time, the episode was one of several examples examined by Reuters of his grappling with modern feminism on campus, decades before he began arguing against the diversity, equality and inclusion initiative. in the US Army. Reuters spoke with more than a dozen former students, faculty and staff at the university to build a picture of their time at Princeton from 1999 to 2003.
A spokesman for Hegseth did not respond to questions about this incident and others described in this story. Asked about Hegseth’s time at Princeton, a university spokesman said they had no comment.
Hegseth’s views on diversity in the U.S. military, including the role of women, are likely to be at the center of his confirmation hearing Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
While his recent past has been scrutinized in the media, less attention has been paid to his student years.
Under Hegseth’s watch, the Tories published a front page in 2002 that put a cartoon owl in the crosshairs — and then on page three, the same owl appeared with three bullet holes in its head, drops of blood flowing to the ground.
“I felt threatened,” said Petrillo, OWL’s advertising chairman at the time.
The headline of the Tory article was: “Killing feminism: OWL is sabotaging the women’s movement.”
As a publisher, Hegseth published other articles that called homosexuality “abnormal and immoral” and argued that intercourse 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 considered Princeton’s “gratuitous glorification of diversity.”
Brittany Hume Charm recalled an event where she said OWL tried and failed to bury the hatchet with Hegseth, who showed up in his Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) uniform and dismissed OWL’s concerns. She recalled that his unusual decision to appear in uniform worked to intimidate.
Reuters spoke to two former classmates who described Hegseth as friendly and willing to poke fun at himself. They pointed to an on-campus paintball match between Hegseth and the leader of the University Democrats as an example of how he didn’t take himself too seriously.
Judson Wallace, a friend who was on Princeton’s basketball team with him, said Hegseth was hardworking, caring and “the best player who never played,” since he was not a starter on the team.
Tessa Muir, a former Army captain who served under Hegseth in the ROTC program, had a positive opinion of Hegseth during his time at Princeton, calling him “kind.” But she said she was also troubled by his recent comments opposing women in combat, a stance he softened as he sought confirmation of the Senate vote.
“I felt so cheated that they made him chief cadet,” Muir recalled thinking when she learned of Hegseth’s views.
Muir became a lawyer in the Army and served in postings including South Korea.
SCENARIO OF RAPE
In an interview with Reuters, Thema Bryant, who ran Princeton’s sexual assault prevention and response office from 2001 to 2004, addressed a 2002 edition of Hegseth’s Tory that criticized a freshman orientation course on sexual assault.
The course included a scenario about a female student who fainted and was then raped. The Tory article said it was not a clear case of rape as she was not subjected to coercion as she was unconscious.
Although she doesn’t recall seeing the article at the time, Bryant said Hegseth should apologize for his insensitivity to survivors.
“And if you’re talking about the (Department of) Defense, we would have to ask ourselves who are you going to defend? Who are you going to protect? And can you be trusted to do that?” she asked.
Sexual assault is a constant problem in the military.
Asked about sexual assault on campus during Hegseth’s time at Princeton, a university spokesman referred Reuters to Department of Education data showing 28 forced sexual assaults on Princeton’s campus between 2001 and 2003.
Hegseth already arrived at Princeton with a fondness for the military and conservative views and values, his father Brian Hegseth told Reuters.
“Instead of just accepting the tide, he thought it through and believed that what he already had was worth preserving,” he said.
His role as a conservative leader on campus sometimes made him the subject of jokes.
An old joke about Hegseth made the rounds again among Princeton alumni after Trump nominated him to head the Pentagon in November. Appearing in a college humor magazine while a senior, he quoted an “Indian girl” he overheard talking to another about how nice a guy Hegseth seemed.
“Yeah, but you know he really wants to send you and your family back to India, right?” another student responded in the December 2002 issue of Nassau Weekly.
After graduating from Princeton 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 Hegseth has faced what he says is a media smear campaign as reports emerge about his past, including a 2021 incident first reported by Reuters in which a fellow National Guard member called him an “insider threat” because of his tattoos. . Hegseth said he was pulled from guard duty in Washington during President Joe Biden’s inauguration because of the incident.
He has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the 2017 sexual assault allegations that did not result in charges, as well as allegations against him of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement of veterans organizations. Hegseth’s mother helped his defense, retracting an email that surfaced criticizing his treatment of women during one of his two divorces.
Much like his days at Princeton, Hegseth sees himself as an outsider, this time in a bid to become Secretary of Defense. He compared it to his time on Princeton’s basketball team, where he was often benched and “told me I wasn’t good enough to play.”
“I’m used to people talking to me,” he told Sirius XM (NASDAQ: ) radio.
