A judge sided with 12 students who sued for the right to access age-appropriate books on the topics.
John Russell at LGBTQ Nation:
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) – which runs schools for more than 67,000 military-connected children – violated students’ First Amendment rights when it removed books and censored curricula related to race and gender in its schools, a federal judge ruled on Monday. U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles’s October 20 decision grants a preliminary injunction sought by 12 students who attend DoDEA schools, blocking the agency from enforcing three of President Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-DEI executive orders and requiring schools to return nearly 600 books to classroom and library shelves while the case proceeds. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Kentucky, and the ACLU of Virginia filed a complaint on behalf of the 12 students and their families challenging DoDEA’s removal of books from its schools’ classrooms and libraries in response to Trump’s executive orders 14168, 14185, and 14190. The orders, according to the complaint, resulted in DoDEA’s censorship of age-appropriate curricula on race and gender, and its removal of materials that reference slavery, civil rights, race, ethnicity, immigration, diversity, sexual orientation, and gender identity in violation of students’ First Amendment rights. The complaint named DoDEA director Beth Schiavino-Narvaez and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as defendants.
According to the ACLU, books “quarantined” by DoDEA schools included classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and Fahrenheit 451, more recent titles like The Kite Runner, A Queer History of the United States, the children’s book Julián Is a Mermaid, and even Vice President JD Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Lawyers for the DOD reportedly argued that the removals constituted “government speech” and thus were shielded from First Amendment scrutiny. But Giles rejected that characterization, writing that it conflicts with school libraries’ purpose as sites of academic freedom and warning that such a characterization would be “dangerous” for intellectual freedom.
See Also:
The Advocate: Federal judge orders Pentagon to restore LGBTQ+ books, gender & diversity lessons in military schools
Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles issues order in E.K. v. DoDEA to return books that were wrongly quarantined-- especially those touching on race and gender-- to DoDEA school shelves.
