A federal judge has ordered that books on gender and race be returned to the shelves of school libraries on military bases in Kentucky, Virginia, Italy and Japan.
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A federal judge on Monday ordered the Defense Department to return books on gender and race to five school libraries on military bases.
In April, 12 students from schools on military bases in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy, and Japan claimed their First Amendment rights were violated when nearly 600 books were removed from the Department of Defense (DoDEA) schools they attended. Students are the children of active duty military personnel ranging in grades K-11.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Kentucky and ACLU of Virginia filed a petition on behalf of the families seeking the return of “all books and programs already quarantined or removed due to potential violation of the executive orders.”
Earlier this year, President Trump issued executive orders demanding federal agencies remove and ban any material promoting “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
In January, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth released the memorandums “Restoring America’s Fighting Force“, which prohibited “teaching about critical race theory (CRT), DEI, or gender ideology”, and “Months of dead identity at the DoD“, which prohibited the use of official resources for observances such as Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
According to the plaintiffs, DoDEA officials sent emails asking teachers to remove books and cancel lesson plans and events that allegedly violated Trump’s executive orders and Hegseth’s directives.
Books removed from school libraries on military bases covered topics such as gender identity, racism and LGBTQ pride. You can see a list of books here.
Two elementary schools canceled Black History Month events, teachers at one middle school were asked to remove posters of education activist Malala Yousafzai and painter Frida Kahlo and another school canceled Holocaust Remembrance Day.
According to the petition filed by the ACLU, the students claimed that when they protested the school’s actions, they were punished and made “increasingly afraid to discuss race and gender in their classrooms, because they fear being silenced by teachers fearful of violating EOs and DoDEA guidelines.”
In her decisionU.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles sided with the students and their families, writing that “the dismissals were not motivated by educational concerns” but rather that there was “an inappropriate partisan motivation underlying (the defendants’) actions.” Giles wrote that DOD officials must “immediately restore the books and educational materials that have been removed.”
The Department of Defense and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have not yet responded to NPR’s request for comment.
