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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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An article about baseball legend Jackie Robinson's time in the Army was removed from the Department of Defense's website, before being restored.
The webpage's URL included "dei" and led to a "404 - Page not found" message when Newsweek accessed it early Wednesday, indicating it was taken down as part of a purge of online content that the Trump administration considers related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
It was restored to the website later on Wednesday.
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"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," Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said in a statement to Newsweek.
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The Context
President Donald Trump and other DEI critics say such initiatives are discriminatory. He has signed executive orders that aim to eradicate DEI initiatives from the government and private sector. An appeals court on Friday ruled his administration could temporarily implement a ban on DEI programs at federal agencies and businesses with government contracts.
The Pentagon has already taken down thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups as part of its efforts to delete material the Trump administration considers DEI, Associated Press reported.
The Pentagon has defended the purge, but said that pages honoring Charles Calvin Rogers, a Black Army general and Medal of Honor recipient, and Japanese American service members had been mistakenly taken down.
What To Know
California station KSBW and ESPN's Jeff Passan first reported on Tuesday night that the article about Robinson had been taken down.
Articles about Robinson's military service were also removed from the Army and Air Force websites, according to KSBW.
The article on the Pentagon's website, headlined Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier, could still be read on the Internet Archive website while it was removed.
It provides details about Robinson's childhood and life before he was drafted into the Army during World War II in 1942.
It said he was assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas and later assigned to Fort Hood, Texas, where he joined the 761st "Black Panthers" tank battalion.
It also provided an account of an incident that almost ended Robinson's Army career.
Robinson had boarded an Army bus on July 6, 1944 and was ordered by the driver to move to the back, but refused. He was later court martialed, but acquitted. Following his acquittal, he was transferred to Camp Breckinridge in Kentucky, where he was a coach for Army athletics until he was honorably discharged in 1944.
The article also recounts Robinson's baseball career, including his breaking of Major League Baseball's color barrier when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
It notes that he experienced "a lot of hatred from fans and other baseball players who felt that Black players should not be allowed in Major League Baseball."
What People Are Saying
ESPN's Jeff Passan wrote on X: "The ghouls who did this should be ashamed. Jackie Robinson was the embodiment of an American hero. Fix this now."
Christina Karl, sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote on X: "Erasing Jackie Robinson's fight against segregation while serving our country is the definition of un-American. Robinson's battle to make this country better by empowering its diversity while fighting for equity & inclusion is the defining struggle of 20th century American sports."
Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said in a statement to Newsweek: "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 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."
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said at a briefing Monday: "I think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this, that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is frankly incorrect.
"Our shared purpose and unity are our strength. And I say this as somebody who led a combat platoon in Afghanistan that was probably the most diverse platoon that you could possibly imagine."
What Happens Next
The article was restored to the Department of Defense's website on Wednesday, but it was not immediately clear what terms in the article led to its removal.
Update 3/20/25, 8:10 a.m. ET: This article was updated to reflect that the article was restored to the Department of Defense's website on Wednesday and add comment from Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot.
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