Jackie Robinson Webpage Removed From Department Of Defense Site

A webpage about Jackie Robinson‘s military service was deleted from the Department Of Defense’s official site on Wednesday (March 19). The move follows a Feb. 27 memo from the Pentagon that called for a “digital content refresh,” resulting in a purge of webpages related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Other pages that were unpublished include stories honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, Marines at Iwo Jima, Navajo Code Talkers, history-making female fighter pilots, and more.

A DoD rep told ABC News the webpages were “mistakenly removed” due to the “search terms used to scrub DEI terms from platforms.” Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot added in a statement, “Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson.”

Ullyot also explained the Dept. aims to not categorize and separate certain figures based on categories like race. “We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex,” he said. “We do so only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like ever other American who has worn the uniform.”

He said DEI initiatives “Divide the force, Erodes unit cohesion, and Interferes with the services’ core warfighting mission.” The DoD official also said the aforementioned stories would eventually be republished.

Jackie Robinson is a historical figure well-known for his monumental achievement of becoming the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB). He heralded the end of racial segregation in the professional sport when he signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Robinson played in six World Series’, was awarded the National League MVP title in 1949, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

The recently scrubbed DoD story highlighted Robinson’s time serving in the US Army. He was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1942.