WASHINGTON − Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the military to look into how its fitness standards have changed since 2015 – the year the military announced it would open all its jobs to women, including combat roles.

The review will include standards for physical fitness, body composition and grooming, including beards, which are currently not allowed in the military, apart from some religious exemptions, according to a memo from Hegseth dated Wednesday.

It will probe “why those standards changed and the impact of those changes,” according to the memo.

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“We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force,” Hegseth said in a statement. The Defense Department did not comment further.

The review will cover changes in those standards since Jan. 1, 2015. In December of that year, the military announced it was opening combat roles to women, removing the last standing barriers to women servicemembers taking on certain roles. The first women moved into those roles the next year.

Hegseth has vowed to restore the military’s combat readiness, accusing past leaders of letting physical fitness standards slip in favor of promoting diversity and inclusion.

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In the run-up to Hegseth’s razor-thin Senate confirmation in January, he faced heavy scrutiny over past comments – including some from shortly before President Donald Trump nominated him – that women should not be in combat roles. Months later, as he faced an uphill confirmation battle, he abruptly flipped his position.

Women veterans and lawmakers worried that the change was a ploy for Senate votes, and that, once sworn in, Hegseth would move to shut women out of combat roles.

‘Grabbing whatever he can’

Hegseth is “grabbing whatever he can” to get women out of combat, said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who previously ran a project on women in the military at the Women’s Research and Education Institute.

“He’s chasing a particular thing that he wants to prove,” she said.

The Army revised its main physical fitness requirement in 2022 to make its scoring scales age and gender neutral.

But a RAND Corporation report found that, while men were passing the new test at similar rates, women’s rates dropped significantly. The gender neutral scoring scale could hurt recruiting and retention rates for some occupations, it found.

The Army responded by adopting an age- and gender-normed scoring scale.

Even after adjusting the scoring scale, one study concluded that the test’s disproportionate emphasis on brute strength still effectively lowered standards for men while disadvantaging women. “Its implementation suggests a deliberate move to preserve male dominance in the military’s most elite ranks,” its author, Amy Forza, wrote.

Women seeking to join the ranks of the military’s most physically grueling positions face just as challenging standards as men. The first woman entered the ranks of the Army’s elite Green Berets in 2020, and there has yet to be a female Navy SEAL.

Military occupational standards remain gender neutral

On top of each military service’s physical fitness standards are occupational standards, which differ depending on the requirements of the position. A provision of the 1994 defense policy bill set out a requirement that those occupational standards are gender neutral.

Manning said raising physical fitness standards higher without taking occupational differences into account doesn’t makes sense – excellent military surgeons in their 50s and 60s should not be judged on the same physical standards as young soldiers, for instance.

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“What women or anybody in the infantry has to be able to do physically is way, way harder than what an orthopedic surgeon has to do,” she said. “You want them to be a good surgeon, not a good cliff climber.”

Women make up around 17% of the military’s 2 million servicemembers. Non-combat roles were opened up to them in 1994 after Congress rescinded a 1988 “risk rule” that barred women from positions in which they could be exposed to combat, live fire, or capture.

Women have served in the military since the country’s inception and have been captured, killed and wounded in battle, even when they were barred from combat roles, according to military historians.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hegseth orders review of military fitness standards