‘Whitewashing’ the curriculum: ACLU takes aim at Department of Defense schools – Virginia Mercury – April 15, 2025

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‘Whitewashing’ the curriculum: ACLU takes aim at Department of Defense schools

Lawsuit alleges the agency stripped award-winning books and canceled cultural events, chilling free speech in classrooms for thousands of military kids.

By: Markus Schmidt – April 15, 2025 7:01 pm

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the U.S. Department of Defense over what it calls a sweeping campaign of censorship in public schools run for military families, including one in Virginia, accusing federal officials of banning books and curricula related to race, gender and civil rights in violation of students’ First Amendment rights.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the ACLU National, the ACLU of Kentucky, and the ACLU of Virginia allege that the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth have systematically stripped school libraries and classrooms of age-appropriate, award-winning materials. These include canonical works about slavery, the civil rights movement, gender identity, and sexual orientation, which were removed following a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

The complaint, filed on behalf of eleven students at DoDEA schools around the world — including two at Crossroads Elementary in Quantico, Virginia — claims these actions have “irreparably harmed” children by denying them access to essential knowledge and perspectives, solely on the basis of “disfavored” political viewpoints.“The Department of Defense Education Activity is quarantining library books and whitewashing curricula in its civilian schools,” the suit states. “With no regard to how canonical, award-winning, or age-appropriate the material, DoDEA today is scrubbing references to race and gender from its libraries and lessons.” As of now, the Department of Defense has not responded to the lawsuit.

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