DOD restores Jackie Robinson article after removal…
An article about Jackie Robinson’s service within the Army was scrubbed from the Department of Defense web site on Wednesday and later restored after a DOD official informed ABC News that it had been “mistakenly removed.”
The official informed the outlet that it had been caught up amongst different supplies eliminated over search phrases used to determine range, equity and inclusion content material from the location, as half of President Donald Trump’s directive to put off DEI initiatives set by the earlier administration.
The article, half of a DOD sequence entitled “Sports Heroes Who Served,” is a celebration of Robinson’s athletic achievements in addition to his army service during World War II and his lasting legacy as a civil rights icon as he turned the primary black participant in Major League Baseball in 1947.
Jackie Robinson #42 of the Brooklyn Dodgers poses for a portrait circa 1947. MLB Photos by way of Getty Images
Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot informed a number of retailers in a assertion that “everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson,” whereas additionally mentioning their respect for the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Talkers and Marines at Iwo Jima – all of whom additionally had their DOD webpages taken down.
Those pages are additionally anticipated to be restored, ABC News reported.
“We salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop,” Ullyot mentioned within the assertion. “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 ever other American who has worn the uniform.”
Ullyot additionally referred to DEI as “Discriminatory Equity Ideology” and added that it “divides” and “erodes” cohesion among the many unit.
Jackie Robinson in his U.S. Army uniform. Getty Images
“We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms,” he mentioned. “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 article, titled “Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier,” informed the story of how Robinson was assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit after he was drafted in 1942 and addressed his 1944 arrest when he refused an order to go the back of an Army bus.
Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers’ first baseman, is proven at Ebbets Field, April 11, 1947. AP
Robinson was acquitted during a court-martial later that yr and honorably discharged in Nov. 1944.
Robinson’s place in American historical past has been solidified a quantity of occasions, together with by MLB which completely retired his No. 42 throughout all the league and celebrates Jackie Robinson Day each April 15.
Just final month, Trump introduced plans for a statute of Robinson, amongst different notable Black figures, to be half of the proposed National Garden of American Heros.
During the announcement, Trump described them as “generations of Black legends, champions, warriors and patriots who helped drive our country forward to greatness.”
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