Summary
- Federal
judge orders Pentagon to restore removed books, curriculum. - Books
and lessons removed due to Trump’s anti-wokeness efforts. - Order
applies to five military-connected schools worldwide.
Six military families who were upset with the actions at
schools under the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, in the
weeks following President Donald Trump’s inauguration filed a lawsuit against
the Department of Defense in April on behalf of the American Civil Liberties
Union.
At DoDEA facilities in the US and 11 other countries, about
67,000 students take classes.
The October 20 order by U.S. District Judge Patricia
Tolliver Giles only pertains to a preliminary injunction that the ACLU obtained
in May; therefore, it remains in effect while the action is ongoing.
In addition to being prohibited from making any
“further removals,” the Department was mandated to “immediately
restore the library books and curricular materials” that had been taken
out since January 19.
The public release of the list of over 600 books impacted by
the department’s actions was previously mandated by Tolliver Giles.
“Being
Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings, “A is for
Activist” by Innosanto Nagara, and “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black
Liberation” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor were among them.
The Oct. 20 verdict was referred
to as an “important victory” by the ACLU.
“The censorship taking place in DoDEA schools as a result
of these executive orders was astonishing in its scope and scale, and we
couldn’t be more pleased that the court has vindicated the First Amendment
rights of the students this has impacted,”
ACLU senior staff attorney Emerson
Sykes said.
Jessica Henninger, a mother of DoDEA children who previously
told USA TODAY that she felt “helpless” in the face of the changes
due to the agency’s operation by the Department of Defense which the Trump
administration dubbed the Department of War, was one of the plaintiffs.
What legal basis did the judge cite for the ruling?
The judge in the ruling ordering the Pentagon to restore
removed books cited the legal base primarily predicated in First
Amendment protections against standpoint demarcation and previous
restraint. The judge emphasized that the government may not act to deny access
to an idea simply because state officers disapprove of that idea
for prejudiced or political reasons.
The ruling underlined that indeed government- run
institutions like military libraries can not suppress content simply due to
political or ideological objections. This protection extends to
access to different materials on race, gender, and history that had been
removed by the Pentagon.
Thus, the legal base is grounded on the principle that the
First Amendment forbids suppression by government actors motivated by
disagreement with political or social dispatches in books.
