The Department of Defense erased articles detailing WWII veteran and MLB legend Jackie Robinson – the most heroic figure in sports history – March 19.

The same Robinson who broke the color barrier. Who won MVP, Rookie of the Year, the batting title and the World Series. Who led the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues in wins above replacement. Who was the first Black player in the Hall of Fame.

But President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense doesn’t want you to know any of that. They don’t want you to know that a Black man overcame a system built against him and reached heights that very few of his white counterparts could dream of.

The censures come at a time when the Trump administration is targeting anything that could possibly be labeled as DEI – public enemy No. 1 of the White House. According to a press statement by the Pentagon, “DEI is dead at the Defense Department.” In fact, when Robinson’s articles were unavailable, they redirected to a URL that added “dei” before “sports-heroes.”

This is beyond disgusting. Robinson, and the dozens of other players who first integrated baseball were not the DEI hires that Trump so desperately wants to end. They were superstars, and they dominated the leagues that fought so hard to keep them out.

Besides Robinson, who received MVP votes in nine of his 11 seasons despite debuting at 28 years old, myriad other Black players joined the league and immediately dominated. It’s no surprise, then, that in 2021, leading statistics database Baseball Reference recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues on par with MLB.

Willie Mays, only the 17th Black player to play in MLB, is often considered to be the best player of all time, racking up two MVPs, 12 Gold Gloves and 24 All-Star nods. He retired with over 3,000 hits, 660 home runs and a career batting average north of .300. The only other player to do that? Henry Aaron, one of the first Black players on the Milwaukee Braves.

Robinson’s Brooklyn Dodgers debuted four of the first Black players in MLB history. Of those four, three made the Hall of Fame – Robinson, Don Newcombe, who won a Cy Young award, and Roy Campanella, who retired with the most home runs by a catcher. All three won MVP awards, a trend that would continue for the next 14 seasons – 11 of 28 winners from 1949-62 were Black.

In deleting these articles, the Department of Defense isn’t just trying to white-out the history of Robinson and MLB – they’re trying to discourage anyone from ever disrupting the status quo. In their view, educating about past protests encourages future questioning that challenges Trump and his administration’s authority. Intentionally keeping Americans in the dark strengthens their hold over their citizens, making them easier to convince come election season.

Truthfully, education can only build an understanding of the world. It can only inform the decision-making and inspire the change that makes the U.S. so strong.

And it can only make baseball better.