Pentagon schools suspend library books for ‘compliance review’ under Trump order

[Jessica_Rose]

Pentagon schools suspend library books for 'compliance review' under Trump orders

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pentagon-schools-suspend-library-books-for-compliance-review-under-trump-orders/ar-AA1yYXlz?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=df6ef97bf1064c96d3768badee1d8668&ei=75

Story by Ed Pilkington (13 Feb 2025)

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".

Books deemed to be in possible violation of the president's executive orders targeting transgender people and so-called "radical indoctrination" of schoolchildren have been removed from library shelves. The memo states that the titles have been relocated "to the professional collection for evaluation with access limited to professional staff".

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.

Raskin invited other members of Congress to join him in "denouncing the purge of books, the stripping of books from the Department of Defense libraries or any other public libraries in America".