Maya Angelou’s seminal autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and books on the Holocaust were included on the Navy’s list of 381 books that were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library on the Annapolis, Md., campus this week because their subject matter was seen as being related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion topics.
President Trump issued an executive order in January that banned D.E.I. materials in kindergarten through 12th grade education, but the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth informed the Naval Academy on March 28 that he intended the order to apply to the school as well, even though it is a college.
The list also includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s examination of depictions of women in the Holocaust, and “How to Be Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are “The Making of Black Lives Matter,” by Christopher J. Lebron; “How Racism Takes Place,” by George Lipsitz; “The Fire This Time,” edited by Jesmyn Ward; “The Myth of Equality,” by Ken Wytsma; studies of the Ku Klux Klan, and the history of lynching in America.
The list also includes books about gender and sexuality, like “Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex” by Elizabeth Reis, and “Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes” by Gerald N. Callahan. President Trump issued a separate executive order in January proclaiming that there are only two sexes.
The inclusion of Maya Angelou’s best-selling 1970 memoir was notable because it has long been viewed by Black women, and men, as transformative. The book, which spent two years on the New York Times best-seller list and was nominated for a National Book Award, chronicles her struggle with racism and trauma, including her account of a rape at the age of 7 by her mother’s boyfriend. Oprah Winfrey famously said that she had been moved to learn from the book that another Black girl had endured sexual abuse. “I read those words and thought, ‘Somebody knows who I am,’” she said.
The Naval Academy began pulling books from the shelves at Nimitz Library on Monday evening and largely completed the task before Mr. Hegseth visited midshipmen on campus Tuesday afternoon.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com