Matt White, writing in “Task & Purpose” describes the censorship that has been imposed on Arlington National Cemetery by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, implementing the Trump policy of removing all references to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In practice, this policy seems to mean that all people should be described without reference to race, gender, or ethnic origin.

TOMBSTONE OF HUMBERT ROQUE VERSACE AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, A SPECIAL FORCES OFFICER AND MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT KILLED IN ACTION IN VIETNAM. THE CEMETERY RECENTLY REMOVED LINKS AND REFERENCE TO A PAGE OF “NOTABLE GRAVES” OF HISPANIC SERVICE MEMBERS WHICH INCLUDED THE PHOTO OF VERSACE’S GRAVE. 

ARMY PHOTO

White writes:

Arlington National Cemetery is the most venerated final resting ground in the nation, overseen by silent soldiers in immaculate uniforms with ramrod-straight discipline. Across its hundreds of acres in Virginia, they watch over 400,000 graves of U.S. service members dating back to the Civil War, including two presidents, and more than 400 Medal of Honor recipients.

But in recent weeks, the cemetery’s public website has scrubbed dozens of pages on gravesites and educational materials that include histories of prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members buried in the cemetery, along with educational material on dozens of Medal of Honor recipients and maps of prominent gravesites of Marine Corps veterans and other services.

Cemetery officials confirmed to Task & Purpose that the pages were “unpublished” to meet recent orders by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth targeting race and gender-related language and policies in the military.

Gone from public view are links to lists of dozens of “Notable Graves” at Arlington of women and Black and Hispanic service members who are buried in the cemetery. About a dozen other “Notable Graves” lists remain highlighted on the website, including lists of politicians, athletes and even foreign nationals. 

Also gone are dozens of academic lesson plans — some built for classroom use, others as self-guided walking tours — on Arlington’s history and those interred there. Among the documents removed or hidden from the cemetery’s “Education” section are maps and notes for self-guided walking tours to the graves of dozens of Medal of Honor recipients and other maps to notable gravesites for war heroes from each military service. Why information on recipients of the Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest award for combat valor — would be removed is unclear, but three of the service members whose graves were noted in the lessons were awarded the Medal of Honor decades after their combat actions following formal Pentagon reviews that determined they had been denied the award on racial grounds.

Like the “Notable Graves” lists, some of the lesson plans remain live but ‘walled-off’ on the cemetery’s website, with no way to reach them through links on the site. Task & Purpose located the de-linked pages by copying the original URL addresses from archived pages at Archive.org or by searching specifically for the pages on Google, which still lists them.

On at least one page that can still be accessed on search engines, language referring to civil rights or racial issues in the military appears to have been altered. A page on Black soldiers in World War II read in December that they had “served their country and fought for racial justice” but now only notes that memorials in the cemetery “honor their dedication and service.”

Altered language on a since-hidden page on African American History at Arlngton National Cemetery. In December, the page was home to over a dozen lesson plans, maps and fact-sheets intended for school groups and visitors. All of those documents have been “unpublished,” according to an Army spokesperson, but will be reposted after they are “updated.” 

A spokesperson at Arlington National Cemetery — which is operated by the Army under the Army Office of Cemeteries — confirmed that the pages had been delisted or “unpublished” but insisted that the academic modules would be republished after they are “reviewed and updated.” The spokesperson said no schedule for their return could be provided.

“The Army has taken immediate steps to comply with all executive orders related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) personnel, programs, and policies,” an Army spokesperson at Arlington told Task & Purpose. “The Army will continue to review its personnel, policies, and programs to ensure it remains in compliance with law and presidential orders. Social media and web pages were removed, archived, or changed to avoid noncompliance with executive orders….”

The removal of the academic lessons hit hard for Civil War historian Kevin Levin, who first noted that Arlington had removed the pages on his substack newsletter. Levin lectures and writes on Civil War history and each year leads trips of history teachers — mostly high school and middle school teachers — through Arlington, so they can better teach students about the cemetery.

Levin noticed that the lessons were missing, he told Task & Purpose, when a teacher he works with tried to prepare a lesson for her students…

“I know the historians and the educators at Arlington, because they meet with our staff every year, and they’ve done a great job of creating lesson plans, they go out of their way to meet with teachers. And I know for a fact that a lot of our teachers are using these lesson plans,” Levin said. “I get the sense that this is being carried out in the sloppiest manner. I get the sense that we’re talking about people who are setting up algorithms and are looking for certain things. I don’t know if this is the end of it. I don’t think it is, I just don’t think these people, whoever is responsible, really knows what they’re doing.”

Levin said he hesitated to post about the missing documents because public exposure could reflect poorly on the professional historians who work at the cemetery and who are “exactly what you want from a federal agency that is responsible for interpreting the past….”

But the slash-and-burn approach to the website, he said, was too much.

“I’ll put it bluntly, this is a shitshow,” he said. “And this one hit home, so I did what I did.”