The College Fix

Retired commander’s $70,000 campaign reverses purge

Hundreds of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” books are back on the shelves at the U.S. Naval Academy library after a retired commander recently protested the decision to remove them as censorship.

The Naval Academy had removed approximately 400 books from its library that promote DEI following an order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as reported by The College Fix.

Now, only 20 books are being held back for a formal compliance review, The 19th News reported.

Retired Commander William Marks began raising money on GoFundMe to replace the books on April 5. He set out to raise $3,810 but far surpassed his target, collecting $70,000.

“This fundraiser will purchase one copy of every book” on the list of those banned, the GoFundMe description states. 

“The Midshipmen deserve better, our military deserves better, and our nation deserves better. Midshipmen are amongst the smartest students in the world … let them decide what books to read,” it states. 

“He calls his effort to maintain the midshipmen’s access to all books in the Nimitz Library Operation Caged Bird, after the 1969 Angelou memoir that was likely targeted because it describes racial segregation and child abuse,” The 19th News reported.

Marks told the outlet that “without knowledge, education and intellectual growth, we will never become a strong Navy.”

“So this contradiction really struck me, that instead of encouraging knowledge and encouraging discussion, the Pentagon was actually suppressing knowledge and limiting discussion,” he said.

He also said that what stood out to him was the seemingly random and harsh selection of books removed, describing them as a diverse representation of American culture and essential to understanding the nation’s history.

Bookstore owner Jinny Amundson, who contributed to the campaign, said she saw the books’ removal as “censorship.”

“For a bookseller, the idea of censoring any kind of books just gives us heart palpitations,” Amundson said.

“And it’s our community. The [midshipmen] think of our shop as a place that they love and one of their sort of unofficial bookstores. We have the mids, the faculty, the administration that come in and think of our space as their own,” she said.

The books removed from the library included: “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi; “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,” by Emmanuel Acho; “American Hate: Survivors Speak Out,” edited by Arjun Singh Sethi; “I know why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou; and “Man & Woman, Boy & Girl: Gender identity from conception to maturity,” by John Money.

The removal of the books followed an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January, which aimed to eliminate all DEI policies and practices from federal agencies.

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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Hand pulling book from bookshelf; Benjamin_Clapp/Shutterstock

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