DOD Spox Defends Removal of Jackie Robinson Website — But Then It’s Quietly Restored

The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images

The Department of Defense initially defended the removal of a website honoring Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, but then restored it after widespread backlash.

In response to an Inauguration Day executive order from President Donald Trump and a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth targeting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI”) programs, the DOD has been removing, editing, or archiving numerous photos, articles, and other online content from its websites that featured veterans who are women, minorities, or members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Among the content that was flagged to be purged was a photo of the World War II nuclear bomber Enola Gay, photos of the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs), and an article about a Native American Marine who was in the famous photo, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.

Some of the websites that were deleted or archived had their URLs changed to include “DEI,” like one for a Black Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War and another honoring Robinson’s military service. As Mediaite’s Ahmad Austin reported earlier, the article about Robinson was in a series called “Sports Heroes Who Served,” with the URL edited to include “deisports-heroes-who-served.”

ESPN’s Jeff Passan asked the Pentagon about the removal of the Robinson website on Wednesday.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot gave Passan the following statement:

As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEl 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 services’ core warfighting mission. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEl 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.

Less than an hour later, military affairs reporter for The Washington Post Dan Lamothe got a longer statement from Ullyot.

The statement specifically mentioned the purging of content about Robinson, the Native American Code Talkers, Tuskegee Airmen, and Marines at Iwo Jima, and “defends” the decision to remove it, citing what Lamothe characterized as “a doozy of a new definition for DEI”:

From Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot:

“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. 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 ever other American who has worn the uniform.

DEI – Discriminatory Equity Ideology does the opposite. It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services’ core warfighting mission.

We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEl 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 so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.”

Then, less than an hour after that follow-up Ullyot comment, Passan checked the Robinson website and it was back online and “restored to its original URL,” without “DEI” in the address.

The article on the DOD website is titled, as of the time of publication, “Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier,” and had “https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2490361/sports-heroes-who-served-baseball-great-jackie-robinson-was-wwii-soldier/” for the URL.

UPDATE 7 pm ET: Lamothe tweeted additional updates after speaking with a “Pentagon official familiar with this Jackie Robinson issue”:

A Pentagon official familiar with this Jackie Robinson issue tells me the use of software and key-word searches played a role in his history being scrubbed from a Defense Department website.

More humans are needed in the loop to ensure that the Defense Department does not “discard important historical legacies like those that have been unfortunately removed by this action,” the official said.

This follows the Enola Gay being flagged for removal from Pentagon websites, as first reported by AP. The Pentagon pointedly denied that the Enola Gay was removed from any site, but it did not address why it was *flagged.*

Fair to ask why lessons weren’t already learned and adopted.