Tonya J. Powers on books being banned by DoD schools

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, as we know, during the woke years of the
Biden administration, we certainly saw that there was a lot
of people, you know, getting books out of certain libraries
that were not appropriate for young children. And apparently now
there's some more books that people are getting angry about
in banning nearly six hundred being banned by the Department
of Defense Schools.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Tanya J.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Powers, our Fox correspondent joining us now, Tanya, welcome in,
Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Sure, thanks, So the Department of Defense Schools.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Are we talking about schools for people that are in
the services that are on bases that the kids go
to schools on these bases.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, this is the Department of Defense Education Activity. They
run one hundred and sixty one schools in eleven countries
and have about sixty seven thousand military children enrolled in
their schools.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, okay, So what are we talking about with these
books being banned? What's going on with the books?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Well, as you mentioned, there were five hundred and ninety
six of them, and we know that because the list
that was ordered. The judge ordered the list to be released.
And I say judge, because this is all from a lawsuit.
This goes back to January, in when the President Trump
issued his executive order on DEI in January, that's when
the Pentagon started, you know, the effort to like scrub LGBT,

(01:15):
two plus minorities, women, all gun to folks from its
public websites and databases. Some of those were put back
after the public backlash, but in all of that from
the Pentagon, books were also pulled from the libraries across
the Defense Department that included at the Service academies that
educate future military officers and these DODA schools that served

(01:36):
military children are pre K through high school. In April,
the ACLU asile a lawsuit on behalf of about a
dozen of those students and their families who said that
these book bands and other actions to implement these executive
orders at the schools violated the First Amendment. The Trump administration, well,
there was a hearing in June. The federal judge ordered

(01:57):
the Trump administration to give them the full list of
the books being removed. The Trump administration asked the judge
to you know, reconsider her order, argued that they couldn't
release the list because it was predecisional. They didn't have
the whole list available on Friday, the judge reaffirmed her
order released the whole list. The majority of these titles

(02:19):
on this five hundred and sixty five hundred and ninety
six book list deal with things like LGBTQ plus issues,
racial issues, you know, that kind of stuff. That's that's
the majority of what this list seems to also cover.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
So these are the same kind of books that we heard,
you know, last year and the year before that are
popping up in public libraries and communities around the United
States that parents thought were inappropriate for the young children
to be able to see, and as they walk into
a library like, oh my gosh, you know the subject matter.
I guess parents feel that they should be able to
teach their own kids at home if they want to,

(02:54):
you know, know about her, have their kids learn about it,
not out there for parents that disagree with certain lifestyles
or books that you know, pretty explicit about different directions
of parents don't agree with. So it's the same type
of books we're talking about, correct.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
It appears to be that way.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And is there any pushback?

Speaker 1 (03:11):
I mean, is there going to be lawsuits filed on
this or people getting you know, democrats losing their minds
on the Department of Defense schools doing this. Where are
we in the fight? I'm sure there's a bunch of
pushback on this.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well yeah, I mean the whole thing comes from a
lawsuit anyway, so that lawsuit is still continuing its way
through the court. After what happens next new question? I'm
not sure, but this is this is one of those
stories that I'm going to be on.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, all right, Tanya, thank you for the update. I
appreciate you.