U.S. Army Libraries Target Books With a Focus on DEI or ‘Gender Ideology’ for Removal

A senior Army official ordered Army libraries, including West Point, to remove all books “with the explicit and sole purpose of directly and overtly promoting DEI, gender ideology, and critical race theory in a manner that subverts meritocracy and unity,” according to a memo sent last week by acting Assistant Secretary of the Army Derrick Anderson. It says the list of documents should be provided to the Army’s chief librarian by April 16th. The memo, dated April 9th, was viewed by NPR.

The memo was sent to the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, the U.S. Military Academy and the Army War College.

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Since the memo was sent by Assistant Secretary Anderson, however, all Army libraries were told this week to only “flag” rather than remove any books, said a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly, adding that a final decision for removing books will be made by top Army officials. The official said at this point no books have been removed from the West Point library, and the “flag” order extends to all Army libraries.

The move by West Point comes after the U.S. Naval Academy removed nearly 400 books from the Nimitz Library over similar concerns from Trump Administration officials. The books included Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, White Supremacy Groups, edited by Mitchell Young and The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon. Also, the works included Police Violence and Race: The effects of Racial Focusing Events on Attitudes About Race Relations,” written in 2016 by Midshipman Gavin D. Jernigan.

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