The Department of Defense has restored Jackie Robinson’s army history after developers “mistakenly” removed his webpage from the DOD website and added the letters “DEI” to the new URL.
According to Fox News, a feature story about baseball and civil rights icon Jackie Robinson’s military service briefly disappeared from the Defense Department’s website on Tuesday (March 18). Robinson, who was a second lieutenant during World War II, was featured in a story titled “Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier.”
The feature, written by David Vergun, went live on February 9, 2021. However, on March 18, the DOD pulled the webpage and added a new URL. But, the new link included the letters, “DEI,” redirected readers to a 404 page.
After much backlash, on Wednesday afternoon (March 19), the DOD website restored the webpage. The Pentagon did not say whether or not it was done or purpose. However, Press Secretary John Ullyot released the following statement to Fox News Digital before restoring the webpage:
“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 – 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, and 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.” The move arrives after the Pentagon called for a “digital content refresh” last month. The agency said it would “remove and archive DoD news articles, photos, and videos promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).”
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Elsewhere, David Robinson, son of Jackie Robinson and a board member of the Jackie Robinson Foundation said:
“We were surprised to learn that a page on the Department of Defense’s website featuring Jackie Robinson among sports heroes who served in the military was taken down. 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. He worked tirelessly on behalf of equal opportunities, in education, business, civic engagement, and within the justice system. A recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, he of course is an American hero.”
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