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Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Hundreds of ‘DEI' books are back at the Naval Academy. An alum and a bookshop fought their removal.
When the U.S. Naval Academy stripped 381 books tied to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from its library, retired Commander William Marks saw more than censorship — he saw a threat to the Navy's future. But last week, after immense public outcry, most of those books returned to Nimitz Library shelves. 'Do you believe it?' asked Marks, a 1996 alum who spearheaded a campaign to maintain student access to the books. 'What great news. We're thrilled.' All the books the academy removed in early April had one thing in common: Officials flagged them for DEI themes. They include Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and Elizabeth Reis' 'Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex.' The purge followed directives from Trump-appointed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has called DEI initiatives 'divisive.' Determined to ensure that students could still read the works, Marks began crowdfunding to replace them on April 5. 'The motto of the Naval Academy is 'from knowledge, seapower,'' said Marks, who served as a Navy commander for 22 years. 'What we mean is without knowledge, education and intellectual growth, we will never become a strong Navy. So this contradiction really struck me, that instead of encouraging knowledge and encouraging discussion, the Pentagon was actually suppressing knowledge and limiting discussion.' About 4,400 students, members of the Brigade of Midshipmen, attend the Naval Academy while on active duty in the U.S. Navy. After graduation, they are required to serve in the Navy or Marine Corps for at least five years. Women represent more than a quarter of the student body, while men make up over 70 percent of midshipmen. Initially, Marks hoped to fundraise $3,810, which he figured would be enough to cover the cost of the books pulled from Nimitz Library. Since Marks lives in Arlington, Texas, he tapped Old Fox Books & Coffeehouse in Annapolis, Maryland, home to the academy, to be his local partner. Donations have far exceeded his goal, topping $70,000. Jinny Amundson, an owner of Old Fox Books, said by the time she got the call from Marks, she had already heard about the books removed and had started compiling a list of them to purchase for the store's inventory. 'For a bookseller, the idea of censoring any kind of books just gives us heart palpitations,' Amundson said. 'And it's our community. The [midshipmen] think of our shop as a place that they love and one of their sort of unofficial bookstores. We have the mids, the faculty, the administration that come in and think of our space as their own.' Amundson said she understood that the removal of books was an order, which has to be followed within the military. But she found the loophole: Her bookshop could store the titles targeted. It is conveniently located about a block away from the Naval Academy gates. The day before the institution's May 23 graduation, Amundson learned that most of the pulled books were back on the library's shelves. She went to see for herself, took pictures of the books and sent them to many of the authors, who had personally contacted her when the restrictions on the works took effect. Now, just 20 books are being sequestered pending a formal compliance review, according to the Department of Defense. A Navy spokesperson did not provide details to The 19th about those titles. Ultimately, a narrowing of the search terms used to flag books for review resulted in the return of hundreds of books to the Nimitz Library, as the Department of Defense first issued broad guidance about book removals to the military services. 'What struck me was the very arbitrary and even cruel nature of the books that got removed,' Marks said. 'These books were a cross-section of American culture. They were important to the discussion of American history.' In an updated May 9 memo, the Pentagon instructed the military services to use 20 search terms to pinpoint books in their academic libraries that might need to be set aside because of how they engage race or gender. Among those terms were affirmative action; critical race theory; gender-affirming care; transgender people; and diversity, equity and inclusion. People across the political spectrum expressed alarm about the book restrictions, which have been widely opposed, according to Marks. 'We really shouldn't be banning any books,' he said. That includes those with unpopular, or even offensive, ideas like Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf,' which managed to evade the Naval Academy's book purge, he noted. He calls his effort to maintain the midshipmen's access to all books in the Nimitz Library Operation Caged Bird, after the 1969 Angelou memoir that was likely targeted because it describes racial segregation and child abuse. The name Operation Caged Bird also alludes to the feeling of being restrained by censorship. 'I almost felt like I could feel the bars closing in on me in terms of what I can read and can't read,' Marks said. 'That didn't sit right.' Marks' GoFundMe campaign has raised enough money to supply 1,000 books in 2025 and fund a three-year initiative at Old Fox, ensuring midshipmen can access any contested title for free. 'If you're a midshipman and you're writing an essay paper and there's a book you can't find, maybe it's been removed or banned, you can call them, and they'll order it for you, and then you just pick it up free of charge,' Marks said. He's also coordinating with other service academies, anticipating similar battles. At the Navy's three other educational institutions, fewer than 20 books have been flagged as potentially incompatible with the military's mission, as have a few dozen at the Air Force Academy and other Air Force academic institutions. The Army has also been ordered to assess library books at its educational institutions, but a spokesperson from West Point told The 19th that no books have been pulled at this time, as its compliance review is still underway. The return of nearly 400 books to the Naval Academy library coincides with a pending lawsuit accusing Department of Defense-run schools of violating K-12 students' constitutional rights for limiting books and subject matter related to gender, race and sexuality. The American Civil Liberties Union filed E.K. v. Department of Defense Education Activity in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of 12 students. A hearing will take place June 3. The ACLU seeks a preliminary injunction to give the youth access to materials it argues have been restricted to align with President Donald Trump's executive orders and political agenda. Amundson said she was pleasantly surprised that it took just weeks for the books to be returned to the Naval Academy. 'I believe that what happened and the response that was given in Annapolis — I think that made the administration be much more careful this time around as they're going for these other libraries, the other Department of Defense libraries around the world,' she said. Amundson said using the funds raised from the GoFundMe campaign, the bookstore was able to give away nearly 500 books in the days leading up to the Naval Academy graduation. For weeks, letters of support piled up and people stopped by the bookstore with gratitude, some even driving from hours away to show their support in person. In addition to Operation Caged Bird, Amundson said there were 'powerful arms at work.' There was pushback on the book removals from members of Congress, the Naval Academy's Board of Visitors and the superintendent — who wrote an open letter signed by hundreds of alumni. 'For right now, this was a huge win for us,' Amundson said. The post Hundreds of 'DEI' books are back at the Naval Academy. An alum and a bookshop fought their removal. appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Black America Web
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Black America Web
Naval Academy Returns Over 300 Books to Libraries Initially Removed for DEI Concerns
Source: Lima / Getty Over the last four months, the Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on anything it believes promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) within the federal government. This makes it somewhat surprising that the U.S. Naval Academy announced that the majority of the books it pulled from the school's libraries under the new anti-DEI mandates have been returned to bookshelves. ABC News reports that of the 381 books that were initially pulled, only 20 have been held back for further review by a Department of Defense (DOD) panel. The return of the books came as a result of a May 9 memo from the Pentagon that listed May 21 as the date the military branches were to finalize and submit their list of books to align with the Trump administration's ongoing DEI purge within the federal government. It appears the primary reason so many books were pulled was that there wasn't a standardized criterion for what terms and content the DOD was searching for, so the Navy implemented its own criteria. Considering Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' and Maia Kobabe's 'Gender Queer' were among the books pulled, that criteria seems to have boiled down to anything Black and/or queer. From ABC News: The 20 official search terms included in the May 9 memo included: affirmative action; allyship; anti-racism; critical race theory; discrimination; diversity in the workplace; diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender affirming care; gender dysphoria; gender expression; gender identity; gender nonconformity; gender transition; transgender military personnel; transgender people; transsexualism; transsexuals; and white privilege. 'The Navy has reviewed library collections at all Department of Navy educational institutions to ensure compliance with directives issued by the President and Department of Defense,' Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday. 'The Navy has identified and sequestered library materials potentially incompatible with the military's core mission, pending the Defense Department's formal review.' The Navy wasn't the only branch of the armed forces to remove books, as the Air Force reported removing about 20 books from their libraries, while the Army hasn't publicly reported how many books it removed from its libraries. The book removals were just one of the many regressive steps the armed forces have taken in recent months as a result of President Trump's executive order ending DEI initiatives within the military. In April, the DOD announced a task force designed to ensure military installations and academies are complying with the elimination of DEI initiatives. I'm generally anti-American imperialism, but I truly don't understand how alienating communities that have historically served their country, even when this country didn't serve them, makes our military stronger. While the books have been returned, the way the Navy has been moving in recent months leaves much to be desired. Earlier this week it was revealed that several Navy SEALs and platoon leaders are facing disciplinary actions for creating and distributing racist memes targeting a Black sailor in their platoon. In April, Ryan Holiday, an author who has spoken at the Naval Academy several times, had a speaking engagement with Naval students canceled an hour before he was set to appear when he refused to remove slides in his presentation that were critical of the book removals. It's kind of funny that the DEI Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is spearheading these changes to implement a 'warrior culture,' yet that culture seems to revolve entirely around erasing ideas that offend you, alienating non-white, non-heteronormative service members, and having the thinnest of skins when faced with mild criticism. But hey, at least the guy didn't leak classified operations planning to a journalist and then throw a tantrum when called on it. Oh wait. SEE ALSO: California Teen Spurs Outrage With Racist Promposal Louisiana Senate Vetoes Retrial Bill For Split Jury Convictions SEE ALSO Naval Academy Returns Over 300 Books to Libraries Initially Removed for DEI Concerns was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
22-05-2025
- Politics
Navy reverses course on DEI book ban after Pentagon review
In a major reversal, almost all the 381 books that the U.S. Naval Academy removed from the school's libraries have been returned to the bookshelves after a new review using the Pentagon's standardized search terms for diversity, equity and inclusion titles found about 20 books that need to be removed pending a future review by a Department of Defense panel, according to a defense official. The reversal comes after a May 9 Pentagon memo set Wednesday as the date by which the military services were to submit and remove book titles from the libraries of their military educational institutions that touch on diversity, race, and gender issues using the Pentagon's specific search terms. Prior to the Pentagon memo standardizing search terms, the Navy used its own terms that identified 381 titles, including titles like "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, "How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi, "Bodies in Doubt" by Elizabeth Reis, and "White Rage" by Carol Anderson. A defense official said that the new review using the DOD search terms found only two or three book titles included in the Navy's earlier search. The 20 official search terms included in the May 9 memo included: affirmative action; allyship; anti-racism; critical race theory; discrimination; diversity in the workplace; diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender affirming care; gender dysphoria; gender expression; gender identity; gender nonconformity; gender transition; transgender military personnel; transgender people; transsexualism; transsexuals; and white privilege. "The Navy has reviewed library collections at all Department of Navy educational institutions to ensure compliance with directives issued by the President and Department of Defense," Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday. "The Navy has identified and sequestered library materials potentially incompatible with the military's core mission, pending the Defense Department's formal review." "Nearly all of the 381 books originally pulled from the shelves at Nimitz Library are back in circulation," he added. The Pentagon memo also applied to other academic institutions run by the military services aside from their military academies. For example, the new review identified less than 20 book titles at each of the Navy's three other academic institutions. Defense officials told The Associated Press that a few dozen books had been pulled out for review by the Air Force for its institutions including the Air Force Academy. It was unclear how many books might have been identified by the Army. The Pentagon memo was issued to bring the DOD into compliance with a Trump executive order to eliminate DEI programs.
Boston Globe
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Most books pulled from Naval Academy library are back on the shelves in latest DEI turn
Advertisement The back-and-forth on book removals reflects a persistent problem in the early months of the Trump administration, as initial orders and demands for an array of policy changes have been forced to be reworked, fine-tuned and reissued because they were vague, badly defined or problematic. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The reviews and changes at military libraries and to websites, social media accounts and more are part of the Trump administration's far-reaching efforts to purge so-called DEI content from federal agencies. The Pentagon earlier this month issued a detailed directive to all military leaders and commands to pull and review all library books addressing diversity, anti-racism or gender issues by Wednesday. The order contained more specific search words than earlier guidance and verbal orders from Defense Department leaders, and officials said it resulted in dramatically fewer banned books than initially thought. Advertisement The Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it reviewed the library collections at all of its educational institutions to ensure compliance with the directives, noting that materials have been 'identified and sequestered.' The Army and Air Force also have reviewed their collections. All of the services' libraries had to provide their new lists of books to Pentagon leaders. Now additional guidance will be given on how to cull those lists, if needed, and determine what should be permanently removed. The review also will 'determine an appropriate ultimate disposition' for those materials, according to a Defense Department memo. The May 9 memo — signed by Timothy Dill, who is performing the duties of the deputy defense undersecretary for personnel — did not say what will happen to the books or whether they will be stored away or destroyed. The libraries at the military academies and those at other schools and commands had to remove educational materials 'promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology' because they are incompatible with the Defense Department's core mission, the memo said. A temporary Academic Libraries Committee set up by the department is overseeing the process, and it provided a list of search terms to use to determine which books to pull and review. Those search terms included: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender and white privilege. The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, removed 381 books from its library in early April after being told by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office to get rid of those that promote DEI. Advertisement The purge led to the removal of books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou's famous autobiography, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.' Others included 'Memorializing the Holocaust,' which deals with Holocaust memorials; 'Half American,' about African Americans in World War II; 'A Respectable Woman,' about the public roles of African American women in 19th century New York; and 'Pursuing Trayvon Martin,' about the 2012 shooting of a Black 17-year-old in Florida that raised questions about racial profiling. The Navy on Wednesday could not confirm which books have been returned to the library or if Angelou's book or the others will remain pulled from shelves. About two weeks after the Naval Academy purge was ordered, the Army and Air Force libraries were told to go through their stacks to find and remove books related to DEI. Throughout the process, leaders of the military services sought more detailed guidance on which books had to go because the initial order to the Naval Academy was verbal and vague. Dill's memo provided that additional guidance. Similarly, directives to reenlist troops forced out for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine and to remove transgender service members from the military have had to be clarified over time. Defense leaders have had to provide additional guidance and wording to address questions from the services on how to legally and accurately implement the orders. And in several cases, orders had to be refined and reissued.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Where does the censorship stop?
() If you remember visiting the local library as a child, you likely went with your mom or dad, a teacher or with nothing more than your bike and a backpack. Chances are state lawmakers or religious zealots did not escort you inside, and you didn't have to wonder whose stories were hidden behind locked doors or inside a vault because nothing was locked up. By 'whose stories,' I refer to those books that reflect the lives of readers who may not often be depicted in literature, much less in a positive manner. So, a Black child who can't read about racial prejudice in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings might blame himself for his own race-based struggles in a white-dominated society. The child who was molested might blame himself until he reads another book often targeted by censors, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Or teenagers questioning their own sexual identity might fear they're the only ones with such a quandary until they read Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer. Kobabe's book was one of numerous books targeted by former state senator Jason Rapert of Conway during his tumultuous time on the Arkansas State Library Board. Recently, the Arkansas Legislature chose to abolish that board, which wasn't as censorship-prone as many lawmakers apparently wanted, and to have the governor appoint a new panel. As if that weren't bad enough, the legislature later approved a bill requiring librarians in schools with kindergarten through fifth-grade students to 'store non-age-appropriate sexual content … in a locked compartment within a designated area.' The bill defines 'non-age-appropriate sexual content' as 'any materials that include explicit instruction, promotion, or advocacy of sexual ideology, behaviors, or orientations that are not developmentally appropriate for kindergarten through grade five … students.' The law does not specify who decides what is age-appropriate. Arkansas' escalating campaign of censorship represents yet another vague, punitive, and politically motivated attempt to chill free expression and intimidate public servants. – Megan Bailey, communications director, ACLU of Arkansas, referring to Act 917 of 2025 This escalation in the war against libraries and public school teachers came after a federal judge in December struck down challenged provisions of Act 372 of 2023 which sought to criminalize librarians who provided minors with access to inappropriate books. Part of Act 372 that went unchallenged in court and that became law 'already requires school libraries to place books deemed to be inappropriate in an area inaccessible to students under 18,' said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. So, why was the lock-'em-up measure, Act 917 of 2025, even needed? Perhaps, for show, for politicians to look tough when it comes to already-denigrated librarians and teachers. I asked Megan Bailey, communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, about the possibility of the ACLU's suing over Act 917. 'We are currently reviewing all options and are continuing to monitor how this and related laws are enforced,' Bailey replied. Referring to 'Arkansas' escalating campaign of censorship,' Bailey said Act 917 'represents yet another vague, punitive, and politically motivated attempt to chill free expression and intimidate public servants.' 'While it may appear narrower than Act 372 on its face, the lack of clarity around what constitutes 'developmentally appropriate' content — and the threat of civil lawsuits against libraries and librarians — creates a chilling effect that will likely lead to over-removal of lawful, constitutionally protected materials out of fear of retribution,' Bailey said in an email. Caldwell-Stone said in an email that, nationally, Act 917 'is unique in that it requires books that are deemed to include 'advocacy of sexual ideology, behaviors, or orientations' not developmentally appropriate for K-5 students to be kept under lock and key, requires parental permission to access such books, and includes provisions for punishing schools and educators who do not comply.' 'In targeting books that address or include themes about gender and sexual orientation, the law may be engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment. Additionally, the parental permission requirement could also be found unconstitutional and a violation of students' rights to access books in the school library,' Caldwell-Stone said. She noted that in 2003, a federal court ruled against the Cedarville, Arkansas, School Board when the court 'set aside a school board's requirement that students submit a written parental permission slip to access the Harry Potter series.' 'It held having to obtain parental permission to check out the books from the school library constituted a restriction on access that violated the students' First Amendment rights, given that the books had been restricted because school board members 'dislike[d] the ideas contained in those books,'' Caldwell-Stone said. 'Laws that impose ambiguous standards and threaten punishment for subjective violations raise serious First Amendment concerns. Librarians should not have to face punishment for failing to implement vague, content-based restrictions,' she added. Despite court rulings and astute cautions, books and intellectual freedom have long been targets of the morality police, though I can't remember a time when the far right targeted libraries in Arkansas as much as it has recently. Censorship was, of course, a hallmark of the late 1940s-50s McCarthy era, and I trust — no, I only hope — that few politicians today yearn to be identified with an era that blacklisted artists and censored books. (Case in point: Ray Bradbury's dystopian 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, in which firefighters burn down any houses that contain outlawed books, was published 'for many years' only in a censored version, according to PEN America, a free-expression advocacy nonprofit.) Lest you think the ACLU, the ALA and I are overreacting, note that in 1965 the novel Black Beauty was banned in South Africa during that country's apartheid era because of the word 'Black' in the title, according to PEN America. In the United States, the first book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series became the most often challenged book in libraries from 2000-2009, according to the American Library Association. And the U.S. Naval Academy, responding to President Donald Trump's anti-diversity orders, removed nearly 400 volumes from its library this year. Where does the censorship stop? Should the Bible be banned because it features stories of polygamy, incest and horrific death? I say no. But if the censors are consistent, they will say yes.
