'A First Amendment problem': Lawsuit over book bans at Department of Defense schools
Source: USA Today
Oct. 12, 2025, 6:02 a.m. ET
By early February, Jessica Henninger realized something had drastically changed at her daughters' school at the Fort Campbell military base in Kentucky. First, she said she received an email from one of her daughter's teachers asking for students to return their library books and saying the library would be closed indefinitely. Around the same time, a Black History Month project – a living wax museum in which her other daughter was planning to depict the poet Maya Angelou – was also canceled.
The changes came days after the Pentagon issued guidance not to use official resources to mark cultural awareness months, such as Black History Month. According to the guidance, labeled "Identity Months Dead at DoD," "efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution." The school her daughters attend is operated by the federal government as part of the Department of Defense Education Activity, often referred to as DoDEA.
There are more than 67,000 students across DoDEA locations in the United States and 11 other countries, according to its website. Henninger described a “helpless” feeling amid the changes. “In DoDEA, our children’s education can be changed by an executive order from the president of the United States,” she said. Henninger took her concerns to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit in April, saying the administration's actions violated the First Amendment.
The complaint said parents received an email Feb. 10 saying DoDEA staff had "reviewed" books related to race and gender and that such books would not be available to students. The complaint asked the judge to order officials to reinstate the removed books and to bar Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and DoDEA Director Beth Schiavino-Narvaez from ordering further removals from school libraries and curriculum. As of early October, there had been no ruling on the case nor on a separate ACLU filing requesting a preliminary injunction that would prevent DoDEA schools from removing books and curriculum while litigation continues.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/12/military-spouse-suing-dod-over-book-bans/86583008007/
REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143441134
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