DoDEA Must Return Books to Shelves, Judge Rules
News
Morning Notes for October 21, 2025
By Ryan Belmore
Published October 21, 2025 at 7:30AM
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DoDEA Must Return Books to Shelves, Judge Rules In a victory for free speech, the Department of Defense must stop censoring classroom and library materials pertaining to race and gender in DOD-run schools, a judge in Alexandria ruled Monday. On behalf of six military families with students enrolled in Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, and the ACLU of Virginia filed a motion for preliminary injunction in May seeking to declare DoDEAs enforcement of executive orders resulting in classroom censorship unconstitutional. Schools on military bases had banned nearly 600 books related to race and gender in response to Trumps executive orders. DoDEA, whose students lead the United States in math and reading proficiency scores, operates 161 schools across 11 countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico. [
ACLU of Virginia]
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