Army and Air Force libraries have been told to go through their stacks to find books related to diversity, equity and inclusion, according to new memos obtained by The Associated Press.
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The Air Force memo, meanwhile, directs the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado, to review all of its titles for anything related to DEI, gender ideology and critical race theory. The school must provide an interim list by April 30 and a final list by May 30.
A senior Army official ordered Army libraries, including West Point, to remove all books with the explicit and sole purpose of directly and overtly promoting DEI, gender ideology, and critical race theory in a manner that subverts meritocracy and unity,” according to a memo sent last week by acting Assistant Secretary of the Army Derrick Anderson. It says the list of documents should be provided to the Army’s chief librarian by April 16th. The memo, dated April 9th, was viewed by NPR.
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Since the memo was sent by Assistant Secretary Anderson, however, all Army libraries were told this week to only “flag” rather than remove any books, said a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly, adding that a final decision for removing books will be made by top Army officials. The official said at this point no books have been removed from the West Point library, and the “flag” order extends to all Army libraries.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
