Jackie Robinson story back on Defense Department site after DEI purge

An article highlighting the U.S. Army career of baseball legend Jackie Robinson has been restored to the Department of Defense website. Its removal had appeared to be related to the Trump administration’s stance against diversity, equity and inclusion.

Robinson, the Hall of Famer who broke baseball’s color barrier when he started at first base for the Dodgers in 1947, was drafted into the Army in 1942 and served until 1944, achieving the rank of second lieutenant.

The article is one of at least 50 pieces that appear on the department’s site as part of a series titled “Sports Heroes Who Served.” Written by David Vergun of DOD News and originally published on Feb. 9, 2021, the article recently disappeared from the website. The page displayed an error message, and the URL had been altered to include “DEI.”

Robinson’s son, David, who serves as a board member of his father’s foundation, issued a statement expressing surprise.

“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,” David Robinson said. “He, of course, is an American hero.”

The article was returned to the department’s website under its original URL on Tuesday.

In addition to highlighting many of Robinson’s athletic achievements, the article details the trailblazer’s military career — including an incident in which he refused an Army bus driver’s order to move to the back. As a result Robinson was court-martialed but later acquitted, then served as a coach for Army athletics until receiving an honorable discharge.

President Trump has issued executive orders in an effort to end the federal government’s support for DEI programs. U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson in Baltimore blocked the orders, but last week a three-judge panel on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the orders can be enforced.

A Feb. 27 Defense Department memo mandated that “by March 5, 2025, all Components must remove and archive DoD news articles, photos, and videos promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” Since then thousands of pages have been removed. A department official told ABC News that the Robinson article was one of several items that had been “mistakenly removed.”

In response to questions from The Times, the Pentagon emailed a statement from the Defense Department 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,” Ullyot stated. “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 [every] other American who has worn the uniform.

“DEI — Discriminatory Equity Ideology does the opposite. It is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that 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 so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.”

On Tuesday morning — before the Robinson article was restored — a search for “Jackie Robinson” on the department’s website brought up an article on Robinson’s Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese, from the “Sports Heroes Who Served” series. That article mentions Reese’s gesture of putting his arm around his Black teammate in an effort to quiet a booing Cincinnati crowd in 1947.

Also while Robinson’s article was missing, several others from the “Sports Heroes Who Served” series that highlight Black athletes — including the NBA’s David Robinson (not Jackie’s son), MLB’s Rod Carew and Olympic gold medalist hurdler Willie Davenport — remained on the site.