On March 19th, the Department of Defense’s webpage for the military career of famous baseball player Jackie Robinson was removed before being restored hours later after backlash. The removal was attributed to the Trump Administration’s recent purge of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.
The Pentagon was ordered by President Trump to scan their federal websites for any content that “promotes DEI,” and have since removed thousands of pages related to the military contributions of POC, women, LGBTQ+ people, and others from marginalized groups.
In a statement issued on the day of Robinson’s removal, Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said, “As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military. It divides the force, erodes unit cohesion and interferes with the service’s core warfighting mission. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content accordingly.”
Robinson trained as an officer in 1942 and was later assigned to a tank regiment. However, harassment and segregation in the military remained significant issues. He faced a court-martial for sitting in the front of a bus in Fort Hood, Texas, and though he was not found guilty of the six counts, including insubordination, the ordeal prevented him from deploying to Europe with his battalion.
David Robinson, son of Jackie and Rachel Robinson and a Jackie Robinson Foundation Board Member, issued a statement on the day of his removal, saying, “We take great pride in Jackie Robinson’s service to our country as a soldier and a sports hero, an icon whose courage, talent, strength of character and dedication contributed greatly to leveling the playing field not only in professional sports but throughout society. He worked tirelessly on behalf of equal opportunities, in education, business, civic engagement, and within the justice system. A recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, he of course is an American hero.”
