The US defense department webpage celebrating a Black Medal of Honor recipient that was removed and had the letters âDEIâ added to the siteâs address has been restored â and the letters scrubbed â after an outcry. But defense department officials have continued to argue publicly that it is wrong to say that diversity is a strength, and that itâs essential to dismantle all âdiversity, equity and inclusionâ efforts.
On Saturday, the Guardian reported that US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogersâs Medal of Honor webpage led to a â404â error message â and that the URL had been changed, with the word âmedalâ changed to âdeimedalâ.
Rogers, who died in 1990, served in the Vietnam war, where he was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base. Then president Richard Nixon awarded him the Medal of Honor, the countryâs highest military honor, in 1970, making him the highest-ranking African American to receive it, according to the West Virginia military hall of fame.
On Saturday the web page honoring him was no longer functional, with a â404 â Page Not Foundâ message appearing along with the note: âThe page you are looking for might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.â
A screenshot posted on Bluesky by the writer Brandon Friedman noted that a Google preview continued to show the defense departmentâs profile page â noting of Rogers that, âas a Black man, he worked for gender and race equality while in the serviceâ. Friedman added that the page no longer worked and the URL had been âchanged to include âDEI medalââ.
By Monday, however, the site was operational once more â and the URL had returned to its original formulation, with the letters DEI no longer present.
In a statement Monday that did not elaborate, a defense department spokesperson told the Guardian: âThe department has restored the Medal of Honor story about army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers ⊠The story was removed during auto removal process.â
While the defense department also claimed publicly on Monday that internet pages honoring Rogers, as well as Japanese American service members, had been taken down mistakenly, spokesperson Sean Parnell also staunchly defended its overall campaign to strip out content singling out the contributions by women and minority groups, which the Trump administration considers âDEIâ.
âI think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this â that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect,â Parnell said.
In all, thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups have been taken down in efforts to delete material promoting diversity, equity and inclusion â an action that Parnell defended at a briefing.
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump have already removed the only female four-star officer on the joint chiefs of staff, Navy Adm Lisa Franchetti, and removed its Black chairperson, Gen CQ Brown Jr.
Brown, a history-making Black fighter pilot, had spoken out during the 2020 George Floyd protests about his own experiences with racial discrimination. Before he became Trumpâs secretary of defense, Hegseth had publicly questioned whether Brown had become the chair of the joint chiefs of staff because of his race.
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âWas it because of his skin color? Or his skill? Weâll never know, but always doubt â which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesnât really much matter,â Hegseth wrote in a book.
âThe full throttled attack on Black leadership, dismantling of civil rights protections, imposition of unjust anti-DEI regulations, and unprecedented historical erasure across the Department of Defense is a clear sign of a new Jim Crow being propagated by our Commander in Chief,â said Richard Brookshire, co-CEO of the Black Veterans Project, a non-profit advocating for the elimination of racial inequities among uniformed service members.
Since retaking the Oval Office in January, Trump has moved his administration to roll back DEI â diversity, equity and inclusion â efforts across the federal government.
One executive order sought to terminate all âmandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities in the federal governmentâ, which the Trump administration deems âillegal DEI and âdiversity, equity, inclusion and accessibilityâ (DEIA) programsâ.
In a win for the Trump administration, an appeals court on Friday lifted a block on executive orders that seek to end the federal governmentâs support for DEI programs.
The Associated Press contributed reporting