Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s misguided effort to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion content from the Pentagon’s website has resulted in the removal of items containing the word “gay,” irrespective of context.
In one instance, the Associated Press reported that this led the department to mistakenly target a photo of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. According to the outlet, one such image features Col. Paul Tibbets Jr. posing in front of the plane, noted in the caption to be named after his mother.
The Boeing B-29 named the Enola Gay is seen on Tinian in the Marianas Islands.
Other flagged photos seemingly include a headshot of U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. A.C. Gay, who appears to have been targeted due to his last name. Another photo of Army Corp biologists was on the list, too, apparently because it mentioned that the group was recording data about fish—including their gender, size, and weight.
The AP reported that at least 26,000 pictures in total were flagged for removal as part of a Day One executive order from President Donald Trump to eliminate such programs across the federal government, but the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in all.
Notably, this isn’t the first time Trump and his cronies have worked to whitewash the military. Last month, Pentagon officials directed offices to review their respective websites and remove any references to DEI. Departments were assigned a deadline of March 5.
The careless strategy employed by the Pentagon to remove these images highlights how the term DEI has lost its significance under the Trump administration. Through this sweeping mandate, Republicans have demonstrated their failure to grasp the true meaning of DEI; it functions instead as a smokescreen for the party, where the real goal is to permit the federal government to deny opportunities based on race and gender.
This is evident when examining other targeted materials such as photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black fighter pilots to fight for the U.S. Military; a picture of retired Air Force Maj. Laura Perry before her gender reassignment surgery in 2014; a photo of an all-female crew taken during Women’s History Month; and an image of one of the first three female graduates of the Infantry Training Battalion.
Indeed, Hegseth’s department did not only inappropriately target images containing the word “gay”; according to AP, many other flagged contents celebrate people of color, transgender soldiers, and women.
Given that most if not all of these latter deletions align with Hegseth and Trump’s war on DEI, they’re unlikely to get clawed back. (The AP noted, for instance, that some photos of the Tuskegee Airmen may be protected due to historical content.) But the administration’s ineptitude and hatred are equally important when it comes to measuring the impact of the president’s second term.
Asked about the database, a spokesperson for the Pentagon told AP: “We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”
What’s happening at the Pentagon reflects the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate any DEI-related language at the Internal Revenue Service, which was similarly shortsighted.
Reporting at the time revealed that unrelated content was also targeted, such as references to the “potential ‘inequity’ of withholding a taxpayer’s money or mentions of the potential ‘inclusion’ of a taxpayer identification number on a form,” as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
It appears that Pentagon officials didn’t learn their lesson from that federal agency’s slip up. One Marine Corps Official told the AP that the images they’ve submitted “either has been taken down or will be taken down.”
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