In a move creating considerable buzz, the Pentagon has directed all military leaders to scrutinize and assess their libraries for materials touching upon topics like diversity, anti-racism, and gender issues. This undertaking is expected to be completed by May 21, as per an internal memo circulated among the military forces last Friday.
This instruction represents the most extensive and clear directive linked to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s initiative aimed at eliminating diversity and equity-oriented programs and resources from military channels. It mirrors prior endeavors to excise a multitude of books from military academies’ collections.
The memo, signed by Timothy Dill, acting in the capacity of the defense undersecretary for personnel, was accessed by a media outlet. It emphasizes an intensified focus on admissions in military academies being based purely on merit, explicitly ruling out any considerations of an individual’s race, ethnicity, or sex. Notably, the directive allows considerations of exceptional athletic talent, prior military engagement, or connections with a military preparatory institution in the selection process.
Secretaries of the services are required to validate within 30 days that the existing standards in admissions processes are being followed strictly. Candidates should be categorized based on their merit-based scores within distinct nomination brackets. These categories encompass students who have ties to service members, or those nominated by high-ranking officials from the vice president to members of Congress.
The recent memo calls for the examination and segregation of educational materials within libraries that advocate what are deemed “divisive concepts and gender ideology,” outlining them as inconsistent with the Department’s principal mission. Identified by May 21, more instructions will soon outline the criteria for removing certain books and deciding their eventual fate—whether they merely need to be stored away or disposed of.
A provisional Academic Libraries Committee is set to steer the review process and make decisions regarding the books. This panel has devised a list of search items to aid in the initial identification of books slated for further evaluation. These terms include expressions such as affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, among others touching on gender and racial subjects.
Following early directives, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, already extracted nearly 400 books from its collection. The purged list included volumes on sensitive subjects like the Holocaust, feminism, and civil rights, alongside Maya Angelou’s celebrated autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
The trials surrounding texts like “Memorializing the Holocaust,” which explores Holocaust monuments, and “Half American,” discussing African Americans during World War II, underline the extensive reach of this initiative. Other notable exclusions encompass works like “A Respectable Woman,” focusing on African American women’s societal roles in 19th-century New York, and the book “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” which delves into the 2012 shooting incident raising critical discourse on racial profiling.