Maya Yang, The Guardian; Pentagon restores webpage for Black Medal of Honor winner but defends DEI purge
[Kip Currier: In my comments on a prior Guardian story yesterday, I noted that although it's good that the webpage for Maj. Gen. Rogers has been restored and the pejorative label "DEImedal" has been removed from the website address, we are left with many troubling concerns and questions. Chief among them: how many other websites have been temporarily or permanently removed and/or altered that relate to marginalized persons?
Now, we have a clearer picture, from this Guardian and Associated Press reporting:
In all, thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups have been taken down in efforts to delete material promoting diversity, equity and inclusion – an action that Parnell defended at a briefing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/defense-department-black-medal-honor-webpage-restored
These purges more than ever underscore the vital work of people and institutions who are collecting, archiving, and preserving digital records; people like archivists and library and museum staffs. Remember this when someone shortsightedly or misguidedly asks whether libraries, archives, and museums are still needed in the Internet and AI ages.
Other non-profit organizations, too, such as the Internet Archive and its digital preservation-missioned Wayback Machine, are crucial for preserving as much information and as many webpages as possible.
Digital preservation of the information and webpages removed by entities like the current Trump administration could eventually enable that information to be restored. It is imperative that everyone have access to the full breadth of human experience and history, rather than the fragmented shards of history and lived experiences that a particular political administration deems acceptable.
Access to information is a core principle of healthy, well-functioning, responsive democracies. As the late Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison sagely asserted, "Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations."]
[Excerpt]
A screenshot posted on Bluesky by the writer Brandon Friedman noted that a Google preview continued to show the defense department’s profile page – noting of Rogers that, “as a Black man, he worked for gender and race equality while in the service”. Friedman added that the page no longer worked and the URL had been “changed to include ‘DEI medal’”.
By Monday, however, the site was operational once more – and the URL had returned to its original formulation, with the letters DEI no longer present.
In a statement on Monday that did not elaborate, a defense department spokesperson told the Guardian: “The department has restored the Medal of Honor story about army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers … The story was removed during auto removal process.”
While the defense department also claimed publicly on Monday that internet pages honoring Rogers, as well as Japanese American service members, had been taken down mistakenly, spokesperson Sean Parnell also staunchly defended its overall campaign to strip out content singling out the contributions by women and minority groups, which the Trump administration considers “DEI”.
“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, is frankly, incorrect,” Parnell said.
In all, thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups have been taken down in efforts to delete material promoting diversity, equity and inclusion – an action that Parnell defended at a briefing.
The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and Donald Trump have already removed the only female four-star officer on the joint chiefs of staff, navy Adm Lisa Franchetti, and removed its Black chairperson, Gen CQ Brown Jr.”
