Defense Department Webpage on Jackie Robinson Goes down, Then Returns Amid DEI Purge

The Associated Press

11:53 JST, March 20, 2025

A Department of Defense webpage describing baseball and civil rights icon Jackie Robinson’s military service was restored Wednesday after it was missing earlier in the day.

That development came after pages honoring a Black Medal of Honor winner and Japanese American service members were taken down — the Pentagon said that was a mistake — amid the department’s campaign to strip out content singling out the contributions by women and minority groups, which the Trump administration considers “DEI.”

The page on Robinson includes biographical information about his Army service during World War II, which occurred prior to his famously breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. When that page’s address was entered Wednesday, a message showed up saying it “might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.” The letters “dei” were also automatically added to the URL.

“We were surprised to learn that a page on the Department of Defense’s website featuring Jackie Robinson among sports heroes who served in the military was taken down,” said David Robinson, son of Jackie Robinson and a board member of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. “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.”

Later Wednesday, the page reappeared on the department’s site, and the Pentagon released a statement.

“We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms,” press secretary John Ullyot said. “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 so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.”

The page includes an anecdote about Robinson refusing to move to the back of an Army bus in 1944, prompting the driver to call military police. Robinson was court martialed but acquitted.

Thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups have been taken down in efforts to delete material promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, commonly referred to as DEI. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell defended the practice at a briefing Monday.

A Defense Department webpage honoring Black Medal of Honor recipient Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers was taken down last week but was back online by Monday night.

“Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson, as well as the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airmen, the Marines at Iwo Jima and so many others — we salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop,” Ullyot said. “We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex. We do so only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like (every) other American who has worn the uniform.”

Ullyot’s statement referred to DEI as “Discriminatory Equity Ideology.”

“It is a form of woke cultural Marxism that Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services’ core warfighting mission,” he said.