The full list of the 596 books banned in schools run by the U.S. Department of Defense has been revealed.
The list was made public by a federal judge who is hearing the case, EK v. Department of Defense Education Activity, challenging the department’s banning of the books from its 161 schools across the world. The Department of Defense provided the list to Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles but asked that it not be made public; the judge denied that request, according to the literary nonprofit PEN America.
Books with LGBTQ+ themes were targeted by the department, which banned All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Pageboy by Elliot Page, and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson.
The bans also disproportionately affected books that address racism, such as Caste by Isabel Wilkerson; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds; and Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education by Mychal Denzel Smith.
Also banned were books with political themes like When a Bully Is President: Truth and Creativity for Oppressive Times by Maya Gonzalez and You Call This Democracy?: How To Fix Our Government and Deliver Power to the People by Elizabeth Rusch.
Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, said in a statement, “This list paints an alarming picture of what the United States government doesn’t want American kids to access. Students in our military schools deserve access to books that examine our country’s history and cover the diversity of views, opinions, identities, and bodies in the country our military protects and serves.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
