A federal judge ordered the military to restore DEI-related books to the shelves of five of its schools on bases across the globe, saying the government was too hasty in carrying out President Trump’s anti-DEI orders.
Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee to the court in Virginia, said the Department of Defense Education Activity, the agency that oversees more than 160 schools, goofed by pulling the books from its libraries.
She also said it went too far in rewriting the curriculum to ban a “Gender and Sex” unit from high schools, lessons on immigration from elementary schools and celebrations of Black history and women’s history months.
She rejected the military’s argument that the books and the lessons were crucial government speech, and she discounted the Pentagon’s argument that it made the changes over educational concerns.
Judge Giles said Mr. Trump’s executive order wasn’t aimed at educational needs and the way the military went about the removal suggested educational concerns weren’t the driving factor.
She said the blunt directions from Mr. Trump to weed out diversity, equity and inclusion materials, combined with a ham-handed approach the Pentagon took to carrying them out, made clear to her the issue was more political than pedagogical.
“Surely, if defendants were concerned with pedagogical interests through book removals, they would be able to tender evidence of the age-level perspective they consider and detailed information on the specific pedagogical standards at issue,” she said.
She issued a preliminary injunction.
The American Civil Liberties Union cheered the decision as a vindication.
“This is an important victory for students in DoDEA schools and anyone who values full libraries and vibrant classrooms,” said Emerson Sykes, a senior lawyer at the ACLU.
Earlier this year, Judge Giles made public the Pentagon’s list of library books it targeted for removal, brushing aside the objections of government lawyers.
The books ranged from “A is for Activist,” an ABC book exploring left-wing causes, to “Zoom in on Equality,” a picture book urging kids to tackle inequality in their classrooms.
The list is hefty on trans tomes, such as “If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It,” by Lil Miss Hot Mess and C.A. Tanaka’s “Baby Drag Queen,” a young adult novel about a budding drag queen.
But also making the naughty list “You-Ology, a Puberty Guide for Every Body,” published by the American Academy of Pediatrics and aimed at giving kids and their parents an “inclusive” and “body positive” tour of growing bodies.
And, ironically, Douglas Murray’s “The Madness of Crowds,” a scathing criticism of DEI, also ended up banned.
Judge Giles also delivered a major win to the administration, though, by limiting her ruling to five schools where the 12 plaintiffs were students. They are Crossroads Elementary School in Virginia, Barsanti Elementary School in Kentucky, Aviano Middle-High School in Italy, and Stollars Elementary School and Egdren Middle High School in Japan.
The plaintiffs had asked for a universal ban across all DoDEA schools, but the judge cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that cautioned against universal injunctions.
That leaves 156 other schools run by the DoDEA untouched.
The ACLU, in its statement Monday, said the “message is clear” for those other schools: “DoDEA’s censorship of books and curriculum materials is unconstitutional.”
