Pentagon Review Of Military Libraries Poses Grave Threat To Intellectual Freedom

(NEW YORK) — On Friday May 9, the Pentagon sent a memo to the country’s military educational institutions, including the War Colleges and Military Service Academies, instructing them to review all library collections for compliance with a previous directive that they not promote “divisive concepts” and “gender ideology.” The memo comes amid ongoing reports of book bans, cancelled speakers, and curricular censorship at Department of Defense schools, the Naval Academy, and West Point, among others.

The new memo from the Pentagon directs institutions to review their library collections to identify and “sequester” all materials “potentially incompatible” with the directive by May 21, using a list of 20 keyword search terms. The keyword list includes many terms already targeted by the Trump administration in federal agencies, such as, “affirmative action,” “discrimination,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “critical race theory,” “gender expression,” “trangender people,” and “white privilege.”

The memo also announced the existence of a “temporary Academic Libraries Committee” made up of “knowledgeable leaders, educators, and library professionals drawn from across the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Military Departments” which informed the list of search terms, will advise on a further review process for the identified materials, and will determine the “ultimate disposition” of them.

“This is an ideological dragnet. Despite the appointment of a committee and the appearance of a review process, nothing about a government edict to yank books off library shelves in places we are supposed to be opening minds is either routine or appropriate,” said Jonathan Friedman, managing director of U.S. free expression programs at PEN America. “The United States military needs future officers who can think critically, informed by a full understanding of the world’s challenges and its complex battlefields. Restricting access to ideas by purging books is designed to do the opposite — to narrow the lens through which people see the world, and curb the freedom to read and think.”

According to the Pentagon’s memo, the review of military educational institutions’ library collections is to be carried out by keyword searches using the following list of 20 Library of Congress Subject Headings:

Affirmative Action Programs — Law and Legislation — United States
Affirmative Action Programs — United States
Affirmative Action
Allyship
Anti-Racism — United States
Critical Race Theory
Discrimination — Law and Legislation — United States
Diversity in the Workplace — United States
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Gender Affirming Care – United States
Gender Dysphoria
Gender Expression
Gender Identity — United States
Gender Nonconformity
Gender Transition
Transgender Military Personnel — United States
Transgender People — United States
Transsexualism — United States
Transsexuals — United States
White privilege (Social structure)

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