U.S. Sen. Katie Britt claims that the Air Force’s removal of a video about the Tuskegee Airmen is an effort by federal bureaucrats to undermine President Donald Trump’s executive orders ending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

However, critics, including Democratic lawmakers, argue that the blame for the confusion surrounding the videos falls on Trump’s DEI orders.

“Nowhere in the order does (Trump) define what DEI means when they refer to what aspects are legal and not legal,” said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at N.Y.U. School of Law.

“I can see why people are unclear on what these orders mean.”

The controversy arose on Monday during the fallout of the Air Force’s review of its training materials, which led to the initial removal of a video about the Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) from basic training.

The Air Force later stated that the history would remain part of their curriculum and dismissed the removal of the videos as a “rumor.”

Britt claimed the removal was “malicious compliance” and warned federal bureaucrats that “resistance style antics” meant to undermine Trump would not be tolerated.

A Britt official said the senator’s office doesn’t believe the removal of the Tuskegee Airman video had anything to do with a misunderstanding of Trump’s executive order.

Democratic politicians, such as U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, and U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, blame Trump for what happened with the Tuskegee Airmen video and warn that similar incidents could occur in the future.

They argue that the controversy resulted from the Trump Administration’s efforts to remove policies designed to level the playing field for historically marginalized people.

“Throughout the next four years, we as Americans will need to remain especially vigilant against attacks on Black history, and as elected officials, we should be prepared to call them out,” Sewell said.

“I hope we continue to do so in a bipartisan manner.”

Trump, in his Jan. 22 order, targeted “radical DEI preferencing in federal contracting,” as an extension of broader efforts that include multiple executive orders aimed at ridding the federal government of DEI altogether.

“It was the environment created by those efforts that led to America’s most famed military fighting force, the Tuskegee Airmen, being removed from the training materials,” Figures said. “It is my hope that the Trump Administration learns from what happened here and does better going forward.”

Imani Cheers, an associate professor at George Washington University, said that the incident within the Air Force demonstrates “how swiftly misunderstanding comes in the midst of chaos.”

Cheers added that DEI has been misconstrued to refer only to certain groups, rather than a wide swath of the population that isn’t white, cisgender, Christian, and male.

“What we’ll see in the coming months — perhaps, years — are challenges to these sweeping generalizations that if we have to remove DEI training, does that also mean education around contributions that individuals made including, in this instance, our military service?” Cheers said.

In Tuskegee, a predominantly Black city in Alabama, public officials expressed scorn toward the Trump Administration for creating confusion with the DEI order.

Alabama state Rep. Pebblin Warren, D-Tuskegee, said, “It’s total confusion and there is no solid answer. You won’t get an answer from anyone trying to define what they don’t want to exist.”

The controversy focuses on a video about the Tuskegee Airmen, a famed group of fighter pilots whose success during World War II and segregation helped integrate the U.S. military and paved the way for the wider civil rights movement.

“You cannot discuss World War II if you don’t talk about the Tuskegee Airmen,” Warren said.

“I’m just not sure how exactly how DEI is being applied … and whether they are just looking at everyone on a racial basis.”

The latest DEI fallout comes after hundreds of public entities considered restrictions on the content of teaching and training related to race and sex in public schools.

As of last spring, 10 Republican-majority state legislatures, including Alabama, have passed bills constraining the use of specified “divisive concepts” in education settings.

For now, Glasgow at NYU foresees similar controversies surfacing.

“I think we are going to see organizations overcorrecting,” he said. “I doubt it’s malicious. They don’t want to be targeted by the administration, and they want to make sure they are complying with the president’s orders.”