Late last month, the Office of the Secretary of Defense ordered the removal of military news content that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in the weeks since, some Air Force veterans and civilians have been surprised by what disappeared.
“This morning, I discovered that USCENTCOM’s story about my journey reaching 1,000 combat hours in the F-15E was removed during a recent purge of DEI history,” said retired Lt. Col. Jennifer Cannon, a former F-15E Strike Eagle weapons systems officer, in a LinkedIn post on March 8. “Interestingly, my story didn’t focus on DEI—it was about dedication, teamwork, and supporting our ground troops[.]”
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell directed the removals in a Feb. 26 memo to senior Pentagon leaders, commanders of combatant commands, and defense agency and DOD field activity directors. Titled “Digital Content Refresh,” the memo told the offices to remove by March 5 “all DoD news and feature articles, photos, and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).”
The memo described DEI content as including but not limited to “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.”
Articles that focus on “immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex” or “which [are] counter to merit-based or color-blind policies” should be removed, Parnell wrote. His guidance echoed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s direction that such content can “divide the force—to put one group ahead of another—erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.”
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