Jackie Robinson’s Army story deleted in Defense Department DEI purge; The Washington Post, March 19, 2025

Cindy Boren

 and 

Andrew Golden

, The Washington Post; Jackie Robinson’s Army story deleted in Defense Department DEI purge

[Kip Currier: Another purge of a story about a person of color from the Department of Defense (DoD) website, just as we knew has been happening, following the Trump anti-DEI executive order. This purged site is about legendary Major League Baseball (MLB) player Jackie Robinson. As with the example a few days ago regarding Medal of Honor recipient Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers, the label "DEI" was added to Jackie Robinson's URL.

Thankfully, the story about Jackie Robinson is still accessible via the Internet Archive.

These kinds of purges of digital information about historically disadvantaged persons are akin to the challenging and banning of books that disproportionately are targeted against books by marginalized authors and/or about marginalized persons, which some do not want people to be able to access.

Thank libraries, archives, museums, and non-profit organizations like the Internet Archive that work tirelessly to promote access to diverse information sources and preserve information in myriad formats for all to be able to freely access.]

[Exceprt]

"An article telling the story of the Army career of Jackie Robinson, the Hall of Fame hero who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, no longer is accessible on the Department of Defense website’s series on athletes who served, apparently removed in a purge of articles related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Robinson, described by President Trump last month as helping “drive our country forward to greatness,” served in the Army during World War II. On Tuesday night ESPN’S Jeff Passan noted that “DEI” had been added to the URL on a page about Robinson’s military past. As of Wednesday morning, the story has been taken down, but it remains available through the Internet Archive."