Arlington National Cemetery has purged dozens of pages of information about famous Black, Hispanic and female veterans from its website to comply with President Donald Trump’s diversity, equity and inclusion executive order.
The purge follows Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s declaration that “DEI is dead” as he implements Trump’s agenda at the Pentagon.
One of Trump’s many executive orders was banning DEI in federal programs, and Pentagon bosses have carried out orders to remove any content that “promotes” it.
That includes removing internal links to educational materials on the cemetery’s website.
On the website’s “Notable Graves” dropdown menu, African American History, Hispanic American History and Women’s History no longer appear, screenshots taken by Armed forces outlet Task & Purpose comparing it in December 2024 and now show.
Officials confirmed to the outlet that some pages had been “unpublished.” In a statement to The Independent, an Army spokesperson said it was “working diligently to return removed content” but did not specify when it would return.
“We are proud of our educational content and programming and working diligently to return removed content to ensure alignment with Department of Defense instruction 5400.17 and Executive Orders issued by the President,” the spokesperson said. “We remain committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation with transparency and professionalism, while continuing to engage with our community in a manner that reflects our core values.”
Some pages celebrating diverse veterans still exist and can be found in search, but are no longer available directly through the site itself, Task & Purpose reports.
They include the biographies of the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Colin L. Powell, and the first Black man to sit on the Supreme Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall. A direct link to information about the Air Force’s first African American female brigadier general, Lt. Kara Spears Hultgreen, is also no longer available, according to the outlet.
The missing links and educational materials were first reported by Civil War historian Kevin Levin on his Substack.
Lesson plans for students created by Arlington staff covering Women’s History and Medal of Honor recipients have also been removed from a dropdown menu, Levin noted.
He said that Arlington staff did “an excellent job” in developing the lesson plans for teachers.
“I have seen first hand the good work that they do with teachers and I know for a fact that teachers across the country have used these lesson plans,” he wrote. “So much good work has been lost, more than likely deleted by someone with no understanding or interest in American history.”
Democrats and veterans groups hit out at the move. “This is a terrible affront to the veterans posthumously dishonored and canceled and to their families,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin said. “It is a pathological statement that the MAGA government cannot even accept inclusion in death.”
Progressive Veterans group VoteVets accused the Trump administration of “whitewashing history.”
“Arlington National Cemetery just erased DEI from its website — because Republicans threw a tantrum over honoring ALL who served,” the group said. “The same GOP that cuts Veteran healthcare now decides who’s worthy of remembrance. This isn’t patriotism. It’s whitewashing history.”
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