Air Force Keeps Lessons on Tuskegee Airmen After DEI Review

A video highlighting the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen will remain in the basic military training program.

Insignias for the five Tuskegee Airmen squads on the side of a Tuskegee Army Airfield AY-6 Texan fighter plane during a ceremony to honor the airmen at Selfridge National Airbase in Harrison Township, Michigan, on June 19, 2012. Rebecca Cook/Reuters

The U.S. Air Force said a video highlighting the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, a decorated group of black aviators who fought in World War II, has been reinstated in its training program following a review.

On Saturday, it was reported that lessons related to diversity in the Air Force’s basic military training were removed pending the review to ensure compliance with a ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

On Sunday, Air Force officials said that certain materials, including lessons on the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Air Force Service Pilots, will remain as part of the program.

“No Airmen or Guardians will miss this block of instruction due to the revision, however one group of trainees had the training delayed,” Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, who leads the Air Education and Training Command, said in a statement.

“The revised training which focuses on the documented historic legacy and decorated valor with which these units and Airmen fought for our Nation in World War II and beyond will continue on 27 January. The Air Force has not removed these Airmen’s incredible heritage from any training. Their personal examples of service, sacrifice and combat effectiveness are illustrative of the core values, character and warrior ethos necessary to be an Airman and Guardian.”

The review was conducted in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 21 executive order rescinding DEI initiatives across federal agencies.

Such programs “undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,” the order said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was sworn in on Friday, has been an outspoken critic of the military’s focus on promoting DEI. He has argued that such efforts distract the military from its core missions to prepare for and win wars.

“The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is ‘our diversity is our strength,’” Hegseth said in November 2024 in an interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast.

“Every single one of those distractions means we’re less good at our job, which is supposed to be close with and destroy the enemy on behalf of our nation and bring our boys home. That’s all I care about. That’s what I want a military focused on.”

The Tuskegee Airmen were trained at a segregated air base in Alabama between 1941 and 1946. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying hundreds of patrol and attack missions in Europe and North Africa while suffering far fewer losses of escorted bombers to enemy fighters than the average of other escort groups.

Their contributions to the war effort paved the way for the integration of the U.S. military in 1948. Air Force Secretary W. Stuart Symington, instrumental in convincing President Harry S. Truman to desegregate the armed forces, advocated that African Americans should be admitted to the Air Force based on their merits and abilities rather than their race.