Banned Books at Department of Defense Schools

Nearly 600 books are being banned at Department of Defense Schools. Fox News Radio's Tonya J. Powers joins us to discuss which books are being banned and why. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's get to Tanya Jpowers with Box News Radio in
New York this morning. Tanya, thanks for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Sure, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Books that Department of Defense schools. I was an Air
Force brat, so these are schools that I went to
when I was a kid. Banning some books it has
to do with the current administration. So what sort of
things are off the table? We're off the shelf as
they are.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, off the shelf. Five hundred and ninety six of
these books. They appear to have LGBTQ plus themes race
and racism in America are some of the themes that
you see on this list. I've got the list in
front of me as a matter of fact, and we
only have this list because the judge ordered it to
be released and then stood by that order. As you mentioned,

(00:44):
these schools are part of the Defense Department of Defense
Education Activity. They have one hundred and sixty one schools
in eleven countries with sixty seven thousand military children enrolled
in them. These are the particular schools we're talking about.
In January, when the President rolled out the executive Order
on DEI, that is when you know the Pentagon started,

(01:08):
you know, the effort to scrub you know, minorities, women
in LGBTQ plus people from public websites. There's a lot
of pushback on that. Some of those got added back,
but part of that push was also pulling books from
libraries across the Defense Department that included at not only
service academies for future military officers, but also the d

(01:29):
ODA schools that served the military children PreK through high school.
And that's the ones we're talking about. Those the In April,
there was a lawsuit files by the ACLU on behalf
of a dozen students that go to these schools and
their families that said the book bands and other actions
that were being taken in the you know Trump administration
dei uh push. Basically, you know, it violated their First

(01:54):
Amendment rights, is what they're what they have claimed. So
in a hearing last month, judge who the federal judge, said, okay,
we want you know, you have to you guys have
to release the list of books that you're banning or
you're removing. And the Trump administration requested the judge to
reconsider her order and said that the list could not
be released because it was predecisional. That is their word.

(02:17):
They were still, you know, deciding to find a list
of books last Friday. The judge said, no, that's the
order I meant to give, and I want you to
release the list. So that is how we've ended up
with the list finally being released. So that's how we
know what's on it.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
China Ja Powers with Fox News Radio in New York
this morning. Thank you m HM.