3 days ago
10
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power.
By John Ismay
John Ismay, a Pentagon reporter based in Washington, was commissioned as an officer from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1999.
- April 11, 2025, 1:20 p.m. ET
Gone is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma.
Two copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves.
Gone is “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered.
“The Camp of the Saints” by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries, has been embraced by white supremacists and promoted by Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser.
“The Bell Curve,” which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But a critique of the book was pulled.
The Trump administration’s decision to order the banning of certain books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library is a case study in ideological censorship, alumni and academics say.
Political appointees in the Department of the Navy’s leadership decided which books to remove. A look at the list showed that antiracists were targeted, laying bare the contradictions in the assault on so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
