These are the US military’s diversity photos Trump doesn’t want you to see

The Trump administration is removing photos of and articles about US troops participating in celebrations of diversity during Black History Month and the Pride Parade, like this one from 2022.

Shindigs on base. Pride celebrations. A tribute to a fallen warrior.

These are among the years of celebrations and recognition of the US military’s diversity being expunged from websites on the Trump administration’s orders, a time-consuming effort that extends the DEI crackdown, which includes canceling Black History Month for its workforce of 3 million and erasing all evidence that military commands had ever recognized them.

The online content purge is the latest in a series of policy changes President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have ordered at the Pentagon, including regulations targeting transgender troops.

Since late January, error messages reading “content not available” or “page not found” have appeared on webpages depicting Diversity Day events hosted at military bases, biographies of pioneering military leaders, and stories advocating for women, racial minority groups, and LGBTQ+ troops.

The erasure adds to concerns about the new administration and raises questions about why the military would devote resources to eliminating past projects intended in part to prompt more people to consider a military career in a difficult recruiting era.

‘Our Diversity is Our Strength’

A ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2021 officially opened the US Army Medical Center of Excellence Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Center at Joint Base San Antonio.

Over the past month, Hegseth has criticized the Pentagon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives as divisive, saying he thinks “the single dumbest phrase in military history is, ‘Our Diversity is Our Strength.'”

“I think our strength is our unity, our strength is our shared purpose; regardless of our background, regardless of how we grew up, regardless of our gender, regardless of our race, in this department we will treat everyone equally,” the defense secretary said in February during a town hall at the Pentagon.

“We will treat everyone with fairness. We will treat everyone with respect,” Hegseth added. “And we will judge you as an individual by your merit and by your commitment to the team and the mission.”

The Trump administration made the unprecedented move to ax top military leaders within the US military as part of its DEI pushback, including Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who served as the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first Black officer to lead a military branch, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s first female service chief.

DOD identity moves ‘threaten mission execution’

A senior US Air Force airman during a diversity event in 2023 at Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Ohio.

Hegseth said he believed diversity-related initiatives “erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.”

In a January press release, he said that viewing troops by anything other than their “merit” was meant to “divide or create complications that otherwise should not and do not exist.”

And the wide-ranging online content removal is ensuring that diversity content doesn’t exist — at least on US government websites.

As one of the largest employers in the US, the Department of Defense oversees a geographically and racially diverse workforce and has for decades recognized traditions like Black History Month.

The US military’s active-duty force of 1.3 million is predominantly male, with white as the largest self-identifying race, at 68% in 2023, according to the Pentagon’s demographic report that year. The enlisted ranks were more diverse than the officer corps, with Black troops accounting for 19.5% and Latinos 21.7%.

Of the more than 400,000 racial minority troops, only about 15% were officers, and the lowest percentage of racial diversity was among the highest-ranking officers across all service branches.

Deleting DEI

An Asian American and Pacific Islander booth during the 2021 diversity celebration event at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. 

In addition to halting DEI efforts at the Pentagon, Hegseth also mandated a “digital content refresh across all DoD public platforms,” ordering the removal of diversity-related content by Wednesday.

A memorandum of the February 27 mandate broadly described relevant content as “information that promotes programs, concepts, or materials about critical race theory, gender ideology, and preferential treatment or quotas based upon sex, race or ethnicity, or other DEI-related matters with respect to promotion and selection reform, advisory boards, councils, and working groups.”

The mandate also required the removal of content related to “merit-based or colorblind policies” and cultural heritage months.

Since late February, photos and videos of cultural celebrations and stories highlighting groundbreaking service members have been erased from military-run social media accounts and the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, the Pentagon’s public media database.

Vanishing voices

A pair of military boots commemorated Army 2nd Lt. Emily J.T. Perez, who died in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, during a remembrance event in 2018. 

“I guess I’ll just stop taking photos of and sharing the stories of women and Black soldiers,” an Army public affairs official told Military.com. “Not sure how else to interpret this.”

On social media, people have shared the stories of diversity that have gone dark on the Pentagon’s official digital platforms.

A transgender US soldier noticed the official Facebook account of the US Army’s I Corps had taken down her 2021 Army Heritage Month video, so the soldier reshared the video on social media.

Similarly, an article published in May 2023 about the legacy and achievements of West Point female graduates was taken down. The article mentioned trailblazing women like Maj. Kristen Griest, one of the first two women to graduate from the US Army Ranger School, and 2nd Lt. Emily J.T. Perez, who was a high-ranking cadet leader at West Point.

Perez was also the first Black female officer in US military history to die in combat after she was killed in action while leading a convoy in Iraq in 2006. Some videos about Perez’s service were erased on the Army’s public platforms.

“I also talked about how my dad served for 24 years and the impact of 9/11. Now it’s just gone,” a user who identified herself as a former soldier said on social media after noticing a video she said profiled her was deleted. “Not going to lie it stings knowing my dad’s service didn’t matter, Emily’s service didn’t matter to them, and mine doesn’t either.”

Flagged keywords

A Pride celebration at the Pentagon in 2022.

In an internal memo sent last week, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs listed nearly 60 keywords for officers to use to target online material for removal, Military.com reported.

The memo included terms like “culture,” “diversity,” “racism,” and “sexuality.” “Respect,” one of the Army’s core values, was also among the list of search terms for removable content.

“This directive is antithetical to everything public affairs is supposed to be about,” an Army public affairs official told Military.com. “The Army has ethically compromised everyone.”