Military Families Sue over Defense Department School Book Bans, Other Anti-Diversity Measures

U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Michael L. Brooks, commanding officer of Marine Corps Base Quantico, reads to 2^nd-grade students to celebrate Read Across America Day at Crossroads Elementary School on MCB Quantico, Virginia, February 26, 2023. (Lance Corporal Kayla LeClaire/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

Posted: April 17, 2025 --- Military.com | By Rebecca Kheel

Published April 16, 2025, at 1:30 pm

A dozen students at Defense Department grade schools across the globe are suing the department after books were removed from libraries, school yearbooks were allegedly censored, and class curriculums were sanitized to implement President Donald Trump's anti-diversity and anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders. Alleging 1^st Amendment violations, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) and the Pentagon on behalf of 12 students in pre-K through 11^th grade from 6 military families who attend schools on bases in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy and Japan.

"The implementation of these EOs, without any due process or parental or professional input, is a violation of our children's right to access information that prevents them from learning about their own histories, bodies and identities," Natalie Tolley, a parent from one of the military families suing, said in a statement released by the ACLU. "I have 3 daughters, and they, like all children, deserve access to books that both mirror their own life experiences and that act as windows that expose them to greater diversity.

The administration has now made that verboten in DoDEA schools." A DoDEA spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, saying that "as a matter of policy, the DoDEA does not comment on ongoing litigation." Among his first acts in office, Trump ordered every federal agency to get rid of all policies and materials related to "gender ideology," a right-wing term for being transgender, and the ill-defined concept of "diversity, equity and inclusion."

In practice, at the Pentagon, those orders have resulted in the erasure of minorities, women and LGBTQ+ people from public websites and databases; restrictions on what soldiers can write in academic papers; and the elimination of advisory groups seeking to improve troops' quality of life, among other effects. Some actions, such the removal of webpages about Navajo Code Talkers and Jackie Robinson, were reversed after public outrage.

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At DoDEA schools, books have been pulled from school libraries ranging from classics such as "To Kill a Mockingbird," to a picture biography about the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to an award-winning fiction novel about a transgender teen participating in a national debate competition, to Vice President JD Vance's own memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," according to the lawsuit.

Class curriculums have also been sterilized to remove content the administration objects to, according to the lawsuit. In addition to the widely reported elimination of gender and sexuality chapters from Advanced Placement Psychology textbooks, the lawsuit also alleges that textbooks for health classes have been censored. Chapters that have been cut from health class textbooks include: "Communicable Diseases: Sexually Transmitted Diseases;" "Unwanted Sexual Activity: Sexual Harassment;" "Human Reproductive System, Menstrual Cycle, and Fetal Development;" "Abuse and Neglect;" and "Adolescence and Puberty," according to the suit.

Middle school health classes also are no longer teaching a chapter called "What Is Sexuality?" that "simply defines terms, accurately and without bias, that are commonly used in everyday conversation," the lawsuit says. Student yearbooks have also been instructed not to include "any visual depictions, written content or editorial choices that would directly or indirectly support the instruction, advancement, and/or promotion of 'gender ideology' and/or 'social transition,'" according to the lawsuit.

And, in line with a Defense Department memo declaring "identity months dead," Black History Month assemblies and Women's History Month events were banned, the lawsuit says. While "host nation engagement" events are allowed, the lawsuit calls that distinction "nonsensical," citing the fact that a Guam History and Chamorro Heritage Day celebration was allowed under that category despite the fact that Guam is a U.S. territory and not a host nation.

"Students in DoDEA schools, though they are members of military families, have the same First Amendment rights as all students," Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a statement. "Like everyone else, they deserve classrooms where they are free to read, speak and learn about themselves, their neighbors and the world around them."

DoDEA's implementation of Trump's orders has sparked a level of pushback not typically seen publicly from military families. In addition to the lawsuit, hundreds of DoDEA students have participated in walkouts despite the threat of punishment from school administrators and Pentagon officials. Military family members also protested when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited a base in Germany in February.

Meanwhile, Trump administration book bans at Pentagon institutions have not been isolated to the DoDEA. The Naval Academy recently pulled nearly 400 books from its libraries, including books about the Holocaust and Maya Angelou's acclaimed autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the libraries at West Point and the Air Force Academy have also been directed to review their collections for any books to remove.