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

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”.

The purge of library books will affect up to 67,000 children being taught in Pentagon schools worldwide. The Guardian understands that all 160 schools, located in seven US states and 11 countries, are subject to the censorship.

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.

The book, by the award-winning writer Kathleen Krull, describes the sexist discrimination Ginsburg had to overcome in her rise to becoming a supreme court justice.

Other titles that have been caught up in the review include a book by the American Oscar-winning actor Julianne Moore. Freckleface Strawberry, also for four-to-eight year olds, features a young girl coming to terms with her freckles.

The Guardian invited the defense department to comment on the review of these and other titles, but a spokesperson did not refer to individual titles.

In a statement, the Department of Defense education activity confirmed that it was carrying out a review of library books as part of an examination of all “instructional resources”. The purpose was to ensure that Pentagon schools were aligned to Trump’s recent executive orders, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.

Censorship of books is just one part of the sweep now being conducted in US military schools. A memo sent out to all administrators in defense department schools in Europe last week, that has been obtained by the Guardian, outlines a range of other changes that have to be made by all staff.

Email signature blocks must no longer give personal pronouns, or include “quotes, sayings, or mottos”. All school documents must use the term “sex”, not “gender”.

All school facilities, programs and activities may only be accessed by children according to whether they are “biological females” or “biological males”. The memo also instructs schools to stop celebrating cultural observances such as Black History Month.

The US military news outlet, Stars and Stripes, has reported that school groups such as the Pride club and Women in Stem have also been shuttered under the review. A DoD elementary school in Wiesbaden, Germany, took down a portrait of Michelle Obama, the former First Lady, as part of its cancellation of Black History Month.

An earlier memo circulated last week, and first reported by the Washington Post, specifically banned a number of teaching resources, entire books and chapters within books. They included a chapter on “sexuality and gender” used in advanced psychology courses for high schoolers, an elementary school publication titled How Does Immigration Affect the US?, and a novel about a trans child, Becoming Nicole.