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The U.S. Army Women’s Museum’s website is the latest to be taken down following Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive order.
On Monday, instead of images showcasing the achievements of military women, a bold red banner appeared on the site’s homepage stating: “The Army Women’s Website is temporarily offline.”
Museum officials pulled the site to comply with a recent presidential action as it undergoes additional content review, an Army spokesperson told The Independent.
The spokesperson was unable to provide specifics about why the website was taken down but said there were “probably things on there that were not congruent” with Trump’s anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion executive order titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.”
The order instructed the attorney general and director of the Office of Personnel Management to terminate all DEI mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities throughout the federal government.
Officials plan to relaunch the site once it complies with new standards, the spokesperson said.
Since Friday, thousands of federal websites have been taken down in a Trump administration purge to eliminate programs promoting “gender ideology,” per a memo from the White House Office of Personnel Management issued last week.
Federal agencies were instructed to “take down all outward facing media (website, social media accounts, etc) that inculcate or promote gender ideology.”
Other impacted web pages included numerous from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Food and Drug Administration and Department of Justice, including data on state-level hate crimes and anti-L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ hate crimes.
A large percentage of the removed pages mentioned “transgender” and “inclusion.”
The museum’s website had a section on its homepage promoting its Gender Integration Project Initiative. Next to the section was a photo of a soldier with the words: “Trust transcends gender.” The program’s mission is to integrate women into all military occupational specialties. It’s unclear if the program still exists.
The Independent has emailed the museum and Army for comment.
The museum, located on Fort Gregg-Adams in Virginia, about 133 south of Washington D.C., is the only one in the world dedicated to Army women and honors the contributions of women in the Army from the Revolutionary War to the present, the website stated before it was taken down.
Meanwhile, the museum’s galleries and exhibits remain open to the public.
The exhibits include displays of women serving in World War II, sections on the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, which allowed women to join all branches of the military, and a gallery detailing women serving in the 21st century.
