Purging the Naval Academy library

Editor's note: reporting documents that the Defense Secretary's office ordered books pulled from a government academy library on ideological criteria, but no court or official finding establishes the removal as unlawful.

In late March 2025 Pentagon leadership directed the Naval Academy to review its library for material touching on diversity, equity, inclusion, gender ideology, race theory, or feminism, citing Trump's January executive orders on DEI. Those orders did not by their terms cover the service academies, which are colleges rather than K-12 schools; Pentagon leaders turned to the Naval Academy after a media report noted its library had not been purged. A keyword search flagged about 900 titles, of which 381 were removed on March 31 and April 1 and placed in a room students could not access. The removal was completed the day before Hegseth arrived for a separate, previously scheduled visit.

The Navy published the list. It included Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' Ibram X. Kendi's 'How to Be an Antiracist,' and academic works on race and the civil rights movement; a preliminary list had also flagged an autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., a book on Einstein and race, and a biography of Jackie Robinson. Academy personnel separately and mistakenly removed items honoring Jewish female graduates from the Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel, which leadership called unauthorized and moved to correct.

The purge was largely reversed. By May 21, 2025, all but about 20 books had been returned, after the Defense Department set up an Academic Libraries Committee to determine what could remain, and a few dozen titles were pulled for review at Air Force libraries. Officials described the reversal as part of a pattern in which initial orders were reworked because they were vague or poorly defined. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the service academies were 'fully committed to executing and implementing President Trump's Executive Orders.' The restoration of nearly the entire collection is why this record is rated Tier B.