Report: “Pentagon Schools Suspend Library Books for ‘Compliance Review’ Under Trump Orders”

• UPDATE (Feb. 17, 2025) EveryLibrary Statement on Censorship and Political Interference in Department of Defense K-12 Schools
• UPDATE (Feb. 14, 2025): Statement: ALA, AASL Decry U.S. Defense Department Censorship of Schools and Libraries on Military Installations

—–End Updates—–

From The Guardian:

Tens of thousands of American children studying in Pentagon schools serving US military families have had all access to library books suspended for a week while officials conduct a “compliance review” under Donald Trump’s crackdown on DEI and gender equality.

The Department of Defense circulated a memo to parents on Monday that said that it was examining library books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”. The memo, which has been obtained by the Guardian, said that a “small number of items” had been identified and were being kept for “further review”.

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The censorship of library books in defense department schools provoked a furious response from Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee. He slammed the practice as “naked content and viewpoint censorship of books”, during a hearing on the “censorship-industrial complex” on Wednesday.

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The Guardian has obtained a list of books that have been caught up in the blanket evaluation. They include No Truth Without Ruth, a picture book for four-to-eight-year-olds about the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to sit on the US supreme court.

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