An article detailing Jackie Robinson’s military career has been restored to the US Department of Defense’s (DOD) Web site amid a purge of material considered to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Robinson, who US President Donald Trump last month described as helping “drive our country forward to greatness,” is widely considered a national hero in the US.
He broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when he suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers and went on to be elected to his sport’s Hall of Fame.
Photo: AFP
Robinson also served in the US Army during World War II. However, ESPN’s Jeff Passan on Tuesday night found that a page detailing Robinson’s army career had been taken down and “dei” added to the URL.
On Wednesday, the page had been restored.
Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said that “everyone at the defense department loves Jackie Robinson.”
He added that the defense department regularly checks for material that might have been removed in error.
The initial removal was in step with similar decisions in recent weeks as the Pentagon works on the removal of any Web page it considers to be representative of DEI programs.
The Trump administration has made its distaste for DEI clear and has rolled back many DEI programs across the federal government.
One Trump executive order sought to end all “mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities in the federal government” related to “illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility’ (DEIA) programs”.
Other pages to have been removed include one focusing on Ira Hayes, a Native American who was one of the marines pictured raising the US flag at Iwo Jima during World War II. Articles about the Native American code talkers also appeared to have been removed from military Web sites.
US Department of Defense spokesperson Sean Parnell has defended the removals.
“I think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this — that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect,” Parnell said.
Robinson had a striking military career. After a successful battle to train as an officer, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943 and assigned to a tank regiment.
However, in 1944 the driver of an army bus ordered Robinson to sit at the back, a directive Robinson refused. Robinson was court-martialed and acquitted, then served as an athletics coach before being honorably discharged in November 1944.
The removal of Robinson’s page seems to be at odds with remarks by Trump himself, who last month said Robinson’s statue would be added to a garden of national heroes.
Trump said at the time that Robinson was one of a number of “black legends, champions, warriors and patriots who helped drive our country forward to greatness.”
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