The Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday that in “rare cases”, efforts to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content from Department of Defense websites may have resulted in the deliberate or mistaken deletion of historical pages—including a tribute to Jackie Robinson’s Army service.
A Defense Department official told ABC News that the Robinson webpage, along with other military history content, was “mistakenly removed” due to search terms used in the DEI content purge.
Among the removed pages were tributes to:
- Jackie Robinson’s WWII service
- The Tuskegee Airmen
- The Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima)
- The Navajo Code Talkers
- History-making female fighter pilots
- The Marines at Iwo Jima
The Pentagon confirmed that these pages will be republished.
By Wednesday afternoon, Robinson’s page—titled “Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier”—had been restored in its original form. The page includes details about the racial abuse Robinson endured, as well as his distinction as “the first Black person to serve as a vice president of a major U.S. corporation.”
David Robinson, son of Jackie and Rachel Robinson and a board member of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, expressed surprise and disappointment over the page’s removal.
“We take great pride in Jackie Robinson’s service to our country as a soldier and a sports hero,” he said in a statement. “He worked tirelessly for equal opportunities in education, business, civic engagement, and justice.”
Robinson, a recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, is widely regarded as an American icon who broke baseball’s color barrier and advocated for civil rights beyond sports.
Another page that was deleted and later restored was a 2008 article commemorating the 60th anniversary of U.S. military integration.
In response to criticism, Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot reassured the public, stating, “Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson,” along with the other historical figures whose webpages were mistakenly removed.
As the Pentagon reinstates the missing pages, the incident has raised concerns about the sweeping removal of DEI-related content and the potential loss of historically significant military narratives.
