Democrats call for halt of military academy book purge

Briana Reilly, CQ-Roll Call on Apr 7, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Leading Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee are demanding the Navy “immediately” put a stop to the removal of books from the service’s academy library after officials pulled hundreds of titles promoting diversity, equity and inclusion from the collection.

The call came in the days after the U.S. Naval Academy got rid of nearly 400 volumes from its Nimitz Library collection on topics ranging from racism to gender identity and the Holocaust — the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s push to target so-called culture war issues in the armed forces.

House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, the top Democrat on the Military Personnel Subcommittee, slammed the action as “a blatant attack” on free speech and “a clear effort to suppress academic freedom and rigor” in an April 4 letter to Navy Secretary John Phelan.

“To develop the next generation of Naval officers, the United States Naval Academy must remain committed to intellectual freedom by ensuring the Brigade of Midshipmen can access, explore, and express ideas freely without restriction or interference,” they wrote.

The Navy on April 4 published a complete list of the 381 titles it pulled from the shelves at the academy library March 31 and April 1. The list includes Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility,” Janet Jacobs’ “Memorializing the Holocaust: Gender, Genocide and Collective Memory,” and more.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Annapolis, Md., academy on April 1, but the Associated Press reported last week that Hegseth’s travel was not connected to the book removal.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders seeking to root out so-called DEI initiatives across the federal government. He has also sought to bar K-12 schools that receive federal funds from offering instruction on “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”

In addition to the Naval Academy, multiple media outlets reported that the other military colleges had completed curriculum reviews, but it’s unclear whether similar library purges have taken place.

Smith and Houlahan sent separate letters April 4 to Air Force and Army leaders concerning the potential identification and expulsion of books from those service academy libraries. The pair decried “any effort to censor books” and said such action would undercut each academy’s mission to develop well-rounded leaders.

The letters asked acting Air Force Secretary Gary Ashworth and Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll to disclose whether they were told to review and remove books, and if so, to report who had directed that action; share with Congress a list of the titles that had been identified for potential removal and the process officials used for completing that work; and note whether books have already been removed from circulation.