On Friday, the Defense Department expanded its program of book banning by ordering all military academies and war colleges to go through their libraries and pull material "promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology [that] are incompatible with the Department's core mission," as was stated in a memo quoted by the Associated Press. Officials need to "promptly identify" the books and "sequester" them by May 21, according to the memo. Guidance will be provided by a temporary Defense Department Academic Libraries Committee, which has already given 20 search terms to use to identify offending books. The search terms include "affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual, and white privilege."
PEN America is loudly protesting the directive, which it calls "a sweeping escalation of ideological censorship.... The memo comes amid ongoing reports of book bans, cancelled speakers, and curricular censorship at Department of Defense schools, the Naval Academy, and West Point, among others." [See the list of books pulled from the Nimitz Library at the Naval Academy here, and see our story about a local bookstore and Academy alumni providing midshipmen with free copies of pulled books here.]
Jonathan Friedman, managing director of U.S. free expression programs at PEN America, called the effort "an ideological dragnet. Despite the appointment of a committee and the appearance of a review process, nothing about a government edict to yank books off library shelves in places we are supposed to be opening minds is either routine or appropriate. The United States military needs future officers who can think critically, informed by a full understanding of the world's challenges and its complex battlefields. Restricting access to ideas by purging books is designed to do the opposite--to narrow the lens through which people see the world, and curb the freedom to read and think."