Brandon Drenon
BBC News, Washington DC
Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed from its website information and educational materials about the history of black and female service members.
Some of the content unpublished from the site was on veterans who had received the nation’s highest military recognition, the Medal of Honor, according to military news site Task & Purpose.
The content removal is part of a larger effort by President Donald Trump to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in the military and throughout the federal government.
Approximately 400,000 veterans are buried in the Army-run cemetery, which was established after the US Civil War at the home of the South’s general, Robert E. Lee.
On the cemetery’s website, internal links that directed users to webpages with information about the “Notable Graves” of dozens of black, Hispanic and female veterans were missing on Friday.
The pages contained short biographies about veterans such as Gen Colin L Powell, the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is the highest rank in the military after the president.
They also told the life stories of members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first black military airmen.
Earlier this year, the Defense Department had to reinstate training materials on the revered airmen after a national outcry over its removal under Trump’s orders.
Information on Hector Santa Anna, a World War II bomber pilot and career military leader who has been called a hero of the war, has been taken down, as well.
Visitors to the site may also have trouble finding information, as links to major sections have disappeared. It no longer lists pages for African American History, Hispanic American History and Women’s History.
Content still exists on some notable women buried there, including former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 14 veterans from the unit recently featured in the Oscar-nominated movie The Six Triple Eight, but it is only found from a direct search.
Since re-entering the White House, President Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders banning DEI within the federal government.
A spokesperson for the cemetery said in a statement it was working to restore links and content and remained “committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation”, according to the Washington Post.
It added that it wanted to ensure that the content aligned with Trump’s orders and also with instructions from Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, condemned the content removal.
“The whole thing is deeply concerning,” Smith said in an interview with the New York Times.
“Even if you have concerns about the way DEI was handled in a number of different places, I’ve never seen a problem within the military.”
Trump has made dramatic changes in the military in his second term, including firing the country’s top general, CQ Brown, a black man who had supported diversity in the armed forces.
Secretary Hegseth – a former Fox News host and military veteran – has pledged to root out all diversity initiatives and had accused Gen Brown of being “woke”.
There are 2.03m people serving in the US military on active duty or in reserves, with 30% identifying as part of a minority group such as black or Native American and 18% as Hispanic or Latino, according to the latest Defense Department report. One-fifth of those in the military are women.
