Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s mission to restore a “warrior ethos” to the military was dealt a blow by a federal judge who ordered the return of controversial “woke” books to some military school libraries.
With leftists turning to the courts as their last line of defense against the Trump administration’s reforms, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered the Pentagon to put the books back on the shelves, a victory for those determined to preserve the left-wing cultural indoctrination of military kids.
In her 44-page ruling, Judge Giles ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sued the Department of Defense on behalf of a handful of military families who objected to the removal of the books in compliance with President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to root out corrosive and racist diversity, equit,y and inclusion (DEI) from federal agencies.
GOOD NEWS: A judge ruled that the Admin’s book bans & censorship—including of LGBTQI+ content—in DoDEA schools likely violated the 1st Amendment and ordered books & other materials to be restored as litigation continues.
This fight isn’t over yet, but this is worth celebrating! pic.twitter.com/kD5yPSdSor
— Congressional Equality Caucus (@EqualityCaucus) October 21, 2025
In granting the preliminary injunction, Giles ordered the Pentagon to “immediately restore the library books and curricular materials” that had been removed and prohibited any “further removals,” in her October 20 ruling. The Biden appointee found that the removal of the questionable material likely violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.
“The censorship taking place in DoDEA schools as a result of these executive orders was astonishing in its scope and scale, and we couldn’t be more pleased that the court has vindicated the First Amendment rights of the students this has impacted,” said ACLU senior staff attorney Emerson Sykes who hailed Giles’ ruling as a victory for “anyone who values full libraries and vibrant classrooms.”
“By quarantining library books and whitewashing curricula in its civilian schools, the Department of Defense Education Activity violated students’ First Amendment rights,” ACLU of Virginia senior supervising attorney Matt Callahan said in a statement. “Today’s ruling affirms that government can’t scrub references to race and gender from public school libraries and classrooms just because the Trump administration doesn’t like certain viewpoints on those topics.”
But the victory was a limited one for the ACLU’s crusading culture warriors with Giles declining to extend her ruling to all 161 schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) in the United States and abroad, limiting the ruling to only the five schools named in the lawsuit, citing the Supreme Court’s decision that “universal injunctions likely exceed the power Congress has granted to federal courts.”
According to USA Today, “over 67,000 students attend classes at DoDEA locations.”
“As this matter is still currently the subject of active litigation, we are unable to comment,” DoDEA spokesperson Jessica Tackaberry said, according to the Military Times.
In his January memoranda titled “Restoring America’s Fighting Force,” Hegseth banned “instruction on Critical Race Theory (CRT), DEI, or gender ideology” from all DoD elements.
A fierce critic of the policies of his predecessor, Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who prioritized cultural indoctrination over warfighting, Hegseth has been relentlessly cleansing the “woke” rot from the military.
“We became the woke department. But not anymore,” the Secretary of War recently said in a speech to military leaders. “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions.”
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