Black veterans are warning that the Trump administration’s effort to purge the Defense Department of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content is sending a negative message that could impact recruitment efforts.
The Pentagon has faced backlash in recent weeks after efforts to comply with President Trump’s executive order banning DEI in the military resulted in the removal of webpages dedicated to Jackie Robinson; Colin Powell; Army Maj. Gen. Charles C. Rogers, a Black recipient of the Medal of Honor; the Navajo Code Talkers and Japanese Americans.
Though the military later restored the pages and said the removals were a mistake, veterans like Richard Brookshire said there is a message being sent.
“There’s executive orders that actually do things, and then there’s executive orders that are made to send a message, and that message was very clear. Their intent is to try and resegregate as much of this society as possible that they think they can get away with. If they can’t do it through legal means, they’re going to try and do it by making Black people feel that we are unwelcome or unsafe in these spaces,” Brookshire, co-CEO and co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, told The Hill.
“The President does not put forward an executive order like that, and then also have his Secretary of Defense strip all of this Black history from these websites without this being an aligned effort. These are not isolated things that are occurring in a vacuum.”
Brookshire added that the idea of DEI is not new to the military, but it wasn’t always known as DEI. Rather, it was equal opportunity. Learning about other service members’ history and culture was also a natural occurrence.
“We come from a massive, diverse country and because of that, we need to make sure that we’re creating a unit where people from all different walks of life can thrive, work together and accomplish the mission,” he said. “They have to take people from all walks of life and create a cohesive unit, and that means understanding how people are diverse and how to create an inclusive environment.”
A 2023 survey by Syracuse University found that there are more than 350,000 active duty Black Americans and more than 2.4 million Black veterans. The majority of the survey’s respondents reported having a good experience in the military, and more than half said that they considered encountering racial discrimination in making their decision to enlist.
Trump has made it a top goal of his second term to eliminate DEI across all federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding.
In his January executive order, Trump said he is “committed to meritocracy and to the elimination of race-based and sex-based discrimination within the Armed Forces of the United States. No individual or group within our Armed Forces should be preferred or disadvantaged on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, color, or creed.”
The order also instructed the military to refrain from teaching that America’s founding documents are racist or sexist and about gender ideology.
Trump defended his military DEI purge as a way to ensure “unit cohesion.” But some have expressed concerns over the use of this phrase, which has historically been used to justify segregation as well as deterring LGBTQ and women from enlisting.
The Defense Department buckled down on its goals to continue purging DEI material even after the webpages were removed.
“As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot said in a statement. ““Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military. It 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.”
Just this week, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., removed nearly 400 books that allegedly promote DEI.
When reached for comment, the Pentagon referred The Hill to chief spokesman Sean Parnell’s March video.
In the video, he states that the Pentagon has taken action to identify and archive DEI content from websites and social media platforms.
“The previous administration’s zealous and destructive commitment to DEI not only divided our nation and weakened our force, but it also reduced our country’s finest to their immutable characteristics,” Parnell said.
“Without question, this task was an arduous but incredibly important undertaking. We enforced an aggressive timeline for our DOD services and agencies to comb through a vast array of content while ensuring that our force remains ready and lethal.”
He acknowledged that some content was “incorrectly pulled offline” and added that “history is not DEI.”
“We are so proud of our nation’s heroes and our heritage. We honor the accomplishments of our war fighters and the content of their character. Americans past and present are the greatest people the world has ever known, and we live in the greatest country the world has ever known, and our strength now and has always been our unity and shared purpose.”
But Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) told The Hill he found it difficult to accept the administration’s explanation.
“’Sorry’ is meaningful when you don’t have the intention of it happening again,” said Moore, a veteran. “And the problem is, this keeps on happening. It’s much more difficult to give people grace when you understand that there is an intentionality that’s happening around all of this.”
For Moore, highlighting the contributions of Black veterans is a critical recruitment tool.
Moore, who was deployed to Afghanistan, enlisted after being inspired by former Secretary of State Colin Powell. If Powell, a chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could succeed in the military, then so could he.
He said he worries now that erasing the history of those like Powell — even accidentally — could deter others from seeing the military as a viable option.
“I saw this son of Jamaica immigrants, who went to school in the Bronx, who now led our coalition forces into an overwhelming wind and Operation Desert Storm, and was a national hero, four-star general, national security adviser. And I looked at Colin Powell, and I saw myself,” Moore told The Hill.
“I’m a very proud combat veteran. I don’t know if that part of my history would have been real had it not been for understanding the history of Colin Powell. And so I do think there is a danger of wiping away the relevancy of people who for many young men and women who are looking to find their own personal way, that they should be able to look up and say, I see myself in a way that I looked up and saw Colin Powell and I saw a vision for what my life could be.”
For Moore, it seems the administration is erasing histories in an effort to minimize the sacrifices Black and brown veterans made.
“We’re talking about banning the history of people like Jackie Robinson and the Tuskegee Airmen, people who were fighting for a country because they loved their country in many ways more than their country loved them back,” Moore said. “I don’t think their history should be minimized. I think one of the most empowering things that we can do is actually celebrate not just what they sacrificed, but why they were willing to sacrifice in that moment.”
Brookshire said such efforts to limit information around non-white veterans are particularly concerning because many Americans are unaware of the sacrifices Black and brown soldiers have made in the military.
“For Black people, we have a very keen understanding of what our history is in the military,” he said. “So stripping that history from the websites is not for us, the stripping of the websites, I believe, is … to ensure that people who don’t know the history of Black veterans don’t get to know the history. They don’t get to know the sort of contributions that Black people have made to this country.”
Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-Ga.) told The Hill that the stories of Black veterans “speak to the American spirit – love of country, overcoming adversity, and even discrimination.”
“Our history, even its blemishes which are like scars from battle, make us who we are,” Bishop, who served in the army between 1969 and 1971, said.
“Hiding our history does not change it but recognizing it is the foundation for overcoming our differences so that we can come together even stronger. We know that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, but hiding this history also means missing out on stories that inspire future generations to take the oath, wear the uniform, serve and even sacrifice themselves for all Americans.”