April 7, 2025 Story by: Editor
The U.S. Department of Defense briefly removed an article honoring baseball legend and World War II veteran Jackie Robinson, as part of a broader purge of online content spotlighting the achievements of women and minority groups. This move followed former President Donald Trump’s executive order halting federal support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
As first reported by KSBW Action News on Tuesday, the removal came amid ongoing efforts to scrub government websites of DEI-related materials. The article in question, originally titled “Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier,” had been accessible via a link that later led to a 404 error page—noticeably containing “dei” in the URL. Although the article remained available through the Internet Archive, the Pentagon eventually restored the original page and removed the “dei” reference from the link by Wednesday afternoon.
Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot issued a statement on Wednesday emphasizing the Department’s stance against DEI programs, although he did not specifically mention the Robinson article. “As Secretary (Pete) Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department,” the statement said. “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 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.”
The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for further clarification.
The article in question highlights Jackie Robinson’s legacy both as a trailblazing athlete and a soldier. Before making history as Major League Baseball’s first Black player in the modern era in 1947, Robinson was drafted in 1942 and initially assigned to a segregated cavalry unit at Fort Riley, Kansas. He later earned a commission as a second lieutenant in 1943 and was transferred to the 761st “Black Panthers” tank battalion at Fort Hood, Texas.
A key moment in Robinson’s military history involved a 1944 incident when he refused to move to the back of a military bus after being told, “get to the back of the bus where the colored people belong.” His defiance led to a court-martial, though he was acquitted. He was later transferred to Camp Breckinridge in Kentucky and honorably discharged in November 1944.
The article also underscores Robinson’s post-military achievements: playing with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues, breaking the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, earning six All-Star nods, and helping win the 1955 World Series. Robinson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 and had his number, 42, retired across Major League Baseball in 1997. He passed away in 1972.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, told The Athletic he doesn’t view Robinson’s story as DEI-related content. “This is American history,” Kendrick said. “And Jackie Robinson epitomizes, in my view, what it means to be an American. He embodies that, just as so many players of the Negro Leagues did. So these kinds of initiatives are certainly alarming. It makes the value of an institution like the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum that much more important.”
David Robinson, son of Jackie and Rachel Robinson and a board member of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, expressed surprise over the page’s removal. “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,” Robinson’s statement said. “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.”
Major League Baseball has not issued a comment on the matter.
According to The Associated Press, this was not the only removal tied to the Pentagon’s anti-DEI efforts. A web page honoring Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, a Black Medal of Honor recipient, was briefly taken down before being restored on Monday. Additionally, a page highlighting Japanese-American contributions during wartime was also scrubbed in the process.
Source: The New York Times
