A list of 596 books removed from Department of Defense schools includes Advanced Placement psychology study guides, titles about diversity, puberty, and racism, and the aptly named Young Adult book, You Call This Democracy?
The full list was released by order of a federal judge as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of students and families against the Department of Defense Education Activity, which runs schools for military families.
Among the banned titles, which have been removed from shelves pending review, are numerous nonfiction books about race or racism, including introductions like What’s Diversity? and books for older readers including Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds’ Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You, and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.
Books dealing with the LGBTQ+ community were also targeted. Banned titles include several about transgender youth, including the picture book When Aidan Became a Brother and biographies of Chaz Bono, director Lana Wachowski, and actress Laverne Cox. Also banned were several volumes of the Heartstopper graphic novel series, What Was Stonewall?, Your Rights as an LGBTQ+ Teen (The LGBTQ+ Guide to Beating Bullying) and A Queer History of the United States for Young People.
Books on feminism, gender, and stereotypes were also part of the purge, including Feminism: Reinventing the F-Word, the picture book Julián is a Mermaid, about a boy who makes himself a mermaid costume, and This Is Your Brain on Stereotypes: How Science Is Tackling Unconscious Bias. Study guides for AP Psychology, which includes lessons on gender identity, were also removed, along with books to help kids going through puberty, such as It’s Perfectly Normal and You-ology: A Puberty Guide for Every Body.
Even politics and the political system were targeted for review. In addition to You Call This Democracy?, the list included Are There Two Americas? and When a Bully Is President: Truth and Creativity for Oppressive Times.
“This list paints an alarming picture of what the United States government doesn’t want American kids to access,” said Kasey Meehan, Freedom to Read program director at PEN America. “Students in our military schools deserve access to books that examine our country’s history and cover the diversity of views, opinions, identities, and bodies in the country our military protects and serves.”
The books were removed pending review following President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting discussion of transgender people and diversity, equity, and inclusion. An additional executive order bars the Department of Defense and its schools from promoting “un-American” ideas, which it says includes diversity, equity, and inclusion, “gender ideology,” and anything that would suggest “that America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.”
Books earlier reported as part of the purge included Oscar winner Julianne Moore’s Freckleface Strawberry, a picture book about a redhead who learns to live with her freckles, and Vice President JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. Neither book was mentioned in the official list.
The DoDEA turned over its list of removed books as part of the federal lawsuit but asked that the list not be publicly disclosed. U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles denied that request and released the list on July 11.
The Pentagon earlier said a review of the books pulled from shelves would be completed in June. The department did not provide an update by the end of June.
