Top to bottom, left to right: Information about the54th Massachusetts Regiment at Fort Wagner during the American Civil War; Navajocode talkers;Charles C. Rogers, the highest-ranking black officer to be awarded the Medal of Honor; a history of the segregated and highly decorated Japanese-American442nd Regimental Combat Team; Indigenous women likeOla Mildred Rexroat who have served in the U.S. armed services; and theTuskegee Airmen were among articles deleted under a Trump administration censorship order
The changes were apparently in compliance with an executive order by PresidentDonald Trump abolishing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs.[1]
For approximately the 20 years prior to Trump's order, the U.S. military had perceived "DEI" as strategically valuable, as it supported other personnel recruitment and retention programs.[2] North Carolina history professor Wayne Lee told NPR that profiles of Black officers awarded the Medal of Honor or Indigenous individuals who used tribal languages for secure communications were intended to connect with potential new recruits "who see them as their ancestors and who want to emulate their service...History is a strategic tool in the DOD toolbox, and at the moment they're breaking it."[2]
The department released a statement in January 2025 that celebration of "identity months" was prohibited.[3] Guidance released in February stated, "By March 5, 2025, all Components must remove and archive DoD news articles, photos, and videos promoting DEI, including content related tocritical race theory,gender ideology, andidentity-based programs."[4]
On March 19, the Defense Department toldABC News that "some" pages may have been "mistakenly" removed due to the search terms used for the DEI scrubbing process and would be restored.[5] The content removals may have been the result of anartificial intelligence system that was human-prompted to seek out and remove content associated with "DEI initiatives."[6]
Pentagonpress secretary John Ullyot also told ABC that DEI is "a form ofWokecultural Marxism... asSecretaryHegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department."[5] Ullyot also stated that DEI should be considered to mean "Discriminatory Equity Ideology".[7] On March 21 theWashington Post reported that Ullyot has been sidelined as a spokesperson for the Defense Department.[7] In response to inquiries about the content removals, Pentagon press secretarySean Parnell stated that "anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect."[8] Parnell also argued that during Joe Biden's administration the department had a "zealous and destructive commitment to DEI."[2]
American historianHeather Cox Richardson has argued that the "erasure ofIndigenous,Black,Hispanic, andfemale veterans from our military history is an attempt to elevate white men as the sole actors in our history."[9]
14 of the 18 articles on government websites about the military service of American baseball starJackie Robinson were deleted from U.S. government websites. Robinson was drafted in 1942, court-martialed in 1944 for refusing to go to the back of the bus, acquitted, and honorably discharged later the same year. The new URL of one of the articles is tagged "DEI".[13][14] Press Secretary Ullyot later said, "Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson."[15] A profile of Robinson was restored on March 19.[15]
A profile of Medal of Honor recipientCharles C. Rogers was deleted, with a portion of the URL changed from "medal" to "deimedal"; the changes were reversed two days later and the Trump administration said that the changes were an error resulting from an "auto removal process".[16][17]
A page about the highly decorated442nd Infantry Regiment, a segregated Japanese-American unit, was removed.[19] Following a statement of concern by Hawaii CongressmanEd Case, the page was restored on March 14.[20] According to the Japanese-American internment archive and history group Denshō, the regiment is now labeled a "key military unit" and any mention of the race or place of origin of its soldiers and officers has been removed.[21] Denshō executive director Naomi Ostwald Kawamura noted in a statement, "The irony of this revisionist approach is that the 442nd Regimental Combat Team only existed because of race...the government recognized that a Japanese American unit could counterAxis propaganda aboutU.S. racism and provide a strategic tool for American war efforts by demonstrating America's supposed racial tolerance to the rest of the world. This means that the racial framing of the 442nd is not an incidental part of the story, it is the story. Removing explicit references to race and identity erases the very conditions that led to the unit's formation."[21]
Content about indigenouscode talkers was deleted.[22] Code talkers, includingNavajo code talkers enlisted in theU.S. Marine Corps in World War II, used their native languages to securely transmit messages during multiple wars.[23] Code Talkers content was incompletely restored by March 20 following a public outcry.[6]Navajo Nation presidentBuu Nygren reported that "White House officials informed the Navajo Nation that anartificial intelligence-powered automated review process looking for content with DEI initiatives led to the elimination of anything mentioningNavajo."[6] Pages that mentionNational American Indian Heritage Month remain unavailable.[6]
A profile of a 173rd Sky Soldiers paratrooper of Navajo heritage was deleted.[22]
A profile of Brigadier General Doug Lowrey that mentioned his ancestors' survival of theCherokee removal was deleted.[22]
A history of indigenous women fighting in wars throughout American history was deleted.[22] The article described personnel including anOneida womanTyonajanegen who fought with her husband at the 1777Battle of Oriskany in New York;Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture, a Mohawk from Ontario, Canada, who served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War I; Marge Pascale, a woman ofOjibwe heritage who served with WAAC during World War II, andOla Mildred Rexroat, a woman of Oglala-Lakota heritage who was a WASP and an air-traffic controller in the U.S. Air Force after the war;Minnie Spotted-Wolf, who was the first female Native American U.S. Marine; femaleEskimo Scouts who served with the Alaska National Guard in the 1980s; and Hopi woman and Army specialistLori Piestewa, who was killed in Iraq in 2003 and is the namesake ofPiestewa Peak, a mountain near Phoenix, Arizona.[22][24]
A news release about a guardsman from South Dakota Army National Guard's 235th Military Police Company receiving a dress-protocol exemption based on hisOglala Sioux heritage was deleted.[22]
Arlington removed links to three modules from the Notable Graves menu of their website (African American History, Hispanic American History, Women's History), links to five modules from Education Themes sections (Civil War, Environment, Medal of Honor, Service Branches, Women's History), and links to two modules on the History of Arlington National Cemetery (Freedman's Village, Section 27).[26][27]
A section of Arlington National Cemetery's website on notable graves of Hispanic Americans, including Jose Hector Santa Ana, a great-great-nephew of Mexican GeneralAntonio López de Santa Anna, was removed.[29]
An article about actressBea Arthur's time in the Marines during World War II was removed.[30]
Articles related to theHolocaust were removed, including one about a cadet's experience visitingconcentration camps, an article about survivor Kitty Saks, and a page that commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Week.[30]
Pages sharing details aboutSaleha Jabeen, the first Muslim woman chaplain in the United States Air Force, andKhady Ndiaye, the first Muslim woman chaplain candidate in the United States Army were deleted and replaced with 404 notices.[32][33]
Approximately 400 books were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy library due to purported DEI content.[34]The New York Times has contrasted some of the texts that were removed versus retained:Mein Kampf (retained) versusMemorializing the Holocaust (removed),The Bell Curve (retained) versus a book critiquing it (removed).[35]
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