New findings have revealed that the Trump administration’s rollback on diversity, equity and inclusion guidelines extended their reach into educational materials offered by the Arlington National Cemetery.
In recent weeks, the cemetery’s website scrubbed various pages on grave sites and classroom lesson plans that highlighted the work of Black, Hispanic and female service members buried at the grounds.
Kevin Levin, a historian and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts, first reported on the discovery on his Substack newsletter on March 8 after being tipped off by a fellow educator.
In his own investigation, Levin found that pages focusing on African American history, women’s history, the Reconstruction era or the Civil War were completely removed from Arlington National Cemetery’s educational section.
A separate investigation carried out by Task & Purpose, a military-focused news outlet, found the scrubbing went further than just a few pages.
“I was focused mainly on the lesson plans, or what Arlington calls modules. But it also turned out to include walking tours, pages that feature stories about Medal of Honor recipients,” Levin told WTOP.
“So in a sense, you know, we’re not just talking about a website that connects to teachers for their use, but also for visitors from, really, anywhere — who come to Arlington, and perhaps will use their phone as an app.”
For Levin, the lesson plan revision has left him with one major question: “What will have been lost in the quality of the lesson plans once they are republished?”
It was confirmed to Task & Purpose that affected pages were “unpublished” in order to ensure they met DEI mandates signed into law by President Donald Trump, Levin said, but it’s unclear when exactly the pages will be republished.
“One of the things I fear is that this attempt to bring places like Arlington in accordance with these DEI policies is that this is an attempt to shape how Americans see themselves, and the extent to which we connect to one another, people who are different from us, people who come from different backgrounds,” Levin said.
“That seems to be what’s motivating all of this, and that’s something that, you know, as a citizen of this country, worries me,” he said.
As government mandates are having a trickle effect on the cemetery, Levin said the DEI initiative could also play out across the Smithsonian institutions and, ultimately, alter the history not only presented to residents across the D.C. region, but those visiting the area to tap into its historical importance.
“I worry that bringing these lesson plans within, you know, so that they meld with or are in agreement with these DEI policies, that we are going to lose some of the richness of the history,” he said. “That the attempt to minimize, if not cover up, the many fights for racial justice is going to be overshadowed, is going to be minimized.
WTOP’s Grace Newton contributed to this report.
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