1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

Subject: Stop whitewashing history at Arlington National Cemetery I am writing as your constituent to demand urgent oversight of recent changes to the Arlington National Cemetery website and the broader push to erase “DEI” content from our military institutions. Under the direction of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Arlington has removed or rewritten online material that highlighted the lives and contributions of Black, Hispanic, and women service members, along with key historical context about race, gender, and the Civil War. Those pages existed to tell the fuller truth about who served this country, who is buried at Arlington, and how our ideals have often failed to match our reality. Scrubbing that context is not “neutral.” It is a political act. When the government sanitizes official history in the name of fighting “wokeness,” it sends a clear message: only certain people’s stories are safe, and only certain versions of America are acceptable. That dishonors service members who fought and died while facing discrimination from the very country they defended. It also undermines public trust. If we cannot rely on a national cemetery to present an honest historical record, what can we trust? This is not about partisan spin. It is about whether our national institutions are allowed to acknowledge that race and gender have shaped military service, opportunity, and sacrifice. Erasing that reality does not make the country stronger. It makes us more fragile, more dishonest, and more likely to repeat our mistakes. I am asking you to take concrete steps: 1. Demand a full public accounting from the Department of Defense and Arlington National Cemetery of all historical and biographical content that has been edited, removed, or suppressed under anti‑DEI directives. 2. Support legislation that prohibits the use of federal funds to delete accurate, historically grounded references to race, gender, or ethnicity from official military histories and educational materials. 3. Require restoration and protection of content that documents the contributions of Black, Hispanic, and women service members, and ensure that future changes are guided by historians, not political appointees. Honoring service means telling the truth about who served and what they endured, even when it makes us uncomfortable. I expect you to defend that principle and oppose any effort to turn Arlington into a censored, sanitized version of our past.