Pentagon Anti-DEI Purge Leads To More Erasure Of Our Shared History

The only silver lining in just how stupid this supposed anti-DEI purge of government records has become is that it appears the stupids doing the stupid are now finally starting to realize just how stupid it has become. Stemming from one of Trump’s many executive orders, one which instructed the government to essentially purge its policies and records of anything that could be tied to programs for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), the government has apparently decided to approach this in the laziest and most capricious way possible. Some automated system was setup to flag, and in some cases remove, content on all kinds of government systems content based on broad search terms with nary a human to review the results to be found. Instead, this appears to be something of an anti-woke scream test. These records, often matters of valuable historical content, get removed and the administration waits to see who screams about it so they can clean up any messes they made.

That’s no way to run a government, of course, but here we are. And the end result has been about what you’d expect if you thought this through for ten seconds. Terms that are only sometimes used in DEI-type conversations are being searched and purged for, resulting in the removal of content that has nothing to do with DEI. Historical content has been scrubbed from government websites in the same way, with one example being the removal of references to the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first American nuclear bomb, simply because of the plane’s name.

But rather than stop and admit that this was all going terribly, the Trump administration has steadily marched on. And because it did so, we have a whole new trove of erroneously removed content from Pentagon systems and websites.

But dozens of the articles either flagged for removal or removed already — but still accessible via the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine — and reviewed by CNN have no ostensible connection to DEI programs; race theory; gender ideology or identity-based programs.

At least half a dozen articles already removed are about the Holocaust and now have the word “DEI” in their URL. Articles related to September 11 remembrance, including service members reflecting on their service and where they were that day, have also been removed. So have articles about cancer awareness, including those related to Breast Cancer Awareness month and colon cancer awareness.

Several articles about sexual assault have also been removed and now have “DEI” in their URL, including “April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month” and “A call to action – Three ways to combat sexual assault.”

Articles about suicide prevention have been purged, too, including ones titled: “VA releases veteran suicide statistics by state”; “Suicide prevention alliance focuses on troops, veterans”; and “Suicide Prevention Resources That Can Help.” The latter two articles now feature “DEI” in their URLs.

Also included in the collateral damage were materials relating to Jackie Robinson. Robinson is an American hero, of course, not only for breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, but for what he endured in the military as well. A recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Robinson was court-martialed for refusing to sit in the back of a bus (the other charges against him were made up). An all-white jury acquited him of those charges. The article that was removed was one that detailed his military career.

Now, some of this content, including those concerning Robinson, has since been restored. The scream test resulted in screaming, you see. But much of it has not and the comments coming from the administration about it all are, well, fairly indecipherable.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot said in a statement Wednesday that the Defense Department was “pleased by the rapid compliance” across the Pentagon 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.”

If you’re sure you know what actual hell that means, your confidence is impressive. But voices from inside the Pentagon give lie to Ullyot’s claim that this is all going well.

That automated process has led to “a high level of irresponsible collateral damage,” one of the defense officials said. “People don’t understand the scope and the carelessness of ‘unpublishing’ that’s happened,” the official said.

Another of the defense officials said that the Pentagon understands that the process needs a significant course-correction and is now undergoing a more thorough review of what has been purged to determine if it should be republished.

“Because of these series of events, the department recognizes that this needs to be a more deliberative process involving human beings to ensure that a thorough review of content is completed,” the official said. “This may take more time than originally planned.”

Well, gosh golly gee, welcome to the real world. If only someone could have predicted that this haphazard effort to whitewash history would result in such collateral damage. This is, after all, somewhat akin to content moderation. Which, as we’ve noted repeatedly, is essentially impossible to do correctly at scale.

And when the collateral damage amounts to the erasure of our history, it really is the sort of thing you should want to get as close to correct as possible.