By Guest Columnist Kyle Whitmire
This is an opinion column.
When the U.S. Air Force pulled the Tuskegee Airmen from its training curriculum, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt demanded it be put back.
Good for her. Really. Thank you, senator.
Britt could have left it there. But she just had to assign blame and she sure wasn’t going to put it on the president. Instead, she decried “malicious compliance.”
“I have no doubt Secretary Hegseth will correct and get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days,” the senator said on the platform formally known as Twitter, as though this was some vestigial Deep State agent trying to sabotage the newly re-sworn-in president.
If Hegseth ever got to the bottom of the so-called “malicious compliance,” it seems to have escaped notice.
Three months later, the administration has made its intentions clear — in its words and its actions.
The National Parks Service restored Harriet Tubman to a website about the Underground Railroad after the Washington Post reported that her photo and story there had been struck, among other changes deemphasizing the struggle for racial equality.
Arlington National Cemetery deleted educational materials on its website featuring Black and female service members buried there.
The Defense Department restored a page telling the story of Jackie Robinson’s military service after it was called out for deleting it. The page had been caught in a broader purge of “DEI” material, including a photo of the Hiroshima bomber Enola Gay that was flagged for having the word “gay” in its description.
Far from getting to the bottom of “malicious compliance,” upon taking the reins at the Defense Department, Hegseth fired Black and female officers from this military’s top ranks, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the U.S. Navy.
And if the administration’s objectives were not clear, two weeks ago, Trump signed an executive order assigning Vice President JD Vance to purge Smithsonian Institutions, including the National Zoo, of “improper ideology.”
“Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” the order said. “This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”