Navy reveals list of nearly 400 books removed from Nimitz Library following diversity directive

April 5, 2025 Story by: Publisher

In a sweeping move to comply with executive orders, the U.S. Naval Academy released a list late Friday detailing 391 books that have been taken out of the Nimitz Library. This action follows a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office, aiming to align with President Trump’s executive orders.

In a statement, the Navy said officials went through the Nimitz Library catalog, using keyword searches, to identify books that required further review. About 900 books were identified in the search.

“Departmental officials then closely examined the preliminary list to determine which books required removal,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, Navy spokesman. “Nearly 400 books were removed from Nimitz Library to comply with directives outlined in Executive Orders issued by the President.”

Nearly 150 books focusing on race, African American experiences, white supremacy, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, and other racially sensitive topics were specifically removed.

Among the removed titles are significant works such as “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” “Half American,” and “A Respectable Woman,” which delve into African American history and experiences.

The removal occurred shortly before Defense Secretary Hegseth’s scheduled visit to the academy, though officials clarified that the visit was unrelated to the library’s actions. The Pentagon has emphasized its commitment to executing President Trump’s executive orders, which previously targeted DEI instruction in K-12 schools receiving federal funding.

While the Naval Academy, along with the Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, were not initially included in the January executive order, recent media reports prompted a review of the Naval Academy’s library content. The academies have since conducted curriculum reviews to ensure compliance with federal directives.

As the situation unfolds, the impact of these removals on academic freedom and the broader educational environment at military academies remains a topic of discussion and concern.

A wide array of books on race were targeted, dealing with such topics as African American women poets, entertainers who wore blackface.

The books were removed shortly before Hegseth arrived Tuesday for a visit to the academy, which had already been planned and was not connected to the library purge, officials said.

The Pentagon has said the academies are “fully committed to executing and implementing President Trump’s Executive Orders.”

The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, had not been included in President Donald Trump’s executive order in January that banned diversity instruction, programs or curriculum in kindergarten through 12th grade schools that receive federal funding. That is because the academies are colleges.

Pentagon leaders, however, turned their attention to the Naval Academy last week when a media report noted that the school had not removed books promoting DEI. 

A U.S. official said the academy was told late last week to conduct the review and removal. It isn’t clear if the order was directed by Hegseth or someone else on his staff.

A West Point official confirmed earlier this week that the school had completed a review of its curriculum and was prepared to review library content if directed by the Army. The Air Force and Naval academies had also done curriculum reviews as had been required.

An Air Force Academy official said the school continually reviews its curriculum, coursework and other materials to ensure it all complies with executive orders and Defense Department policies. 

A list of the books in alphabetical by title:

• Afro-Orientalism by Bill V. Mullen
• America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence by Rosemary Radford Ruether
• America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis
• American Hate: Survivors Speak Out edited by Arjun Singh Sethi
• American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America by Leon E. Wynter
• An Impossible Dream? Racial Integration in the United States by Sharon A. Stanley
• Are We Born Racist? New Insights from Neuroscience and Positive Psychology edited by Jason Marsh, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Jeremy Adam Smith
• The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
• The Agony of Masculinity: Race, Gender, and Education in the Age of “New” Racism and Patriarchy by Pierre W. Orelus
• The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism by Nancy DiTomaso
• Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama by Tim Wise
• Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race in America by George Yancy
• Blackface by Ayanna Thompson
• Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy by Nikhil Pal Singh
• Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race by Charles W. Mills
• Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream by Leonard Zeskind
• Censoring Racial Ridicule: Irish, Jewish, and African American Struggles Over Race and Representation, 1890-1930 by M. Alison Kibler
• Changing Nature of Racial and Ethnic Conflict in United States History: 1492 to the Present by Leslie V. Tischauser
• Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity by Tim Wise
• Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Post-Racial America edited by Kimberly Jade Norwood
• Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World by Wil Haygood
• Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports edited by David J. Leonard and C. Richard King
• Confronting Racism in Higher Education: Problems and Possibilities for Fighting Ignorance, Bigotry, and Isolation edited by Jeffrey S. Brooks and Noelle Witherspoon Arnold
• Conservatism and Racism, and Why in America They Are the Same by Robert C. Smith
• Critical Race Theory and Education: A Marxist Response by Mike Cole
• Critical Rhetorics of Race edited by Michael G. Lacy and Kent A. Ono
• Defining Difference: Race and Racism in the History of Psychology edited by Andrew S. Winston
• Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
• Desiring Whiteness: A Lacanian Analysis of Race by Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
• Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López
• Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America—and What We Can Do About It by Juan Williams
• Everywhere You Don’t Belong: A Novel by Gabriel Bump
• Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture edited by Greg Tate
• Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights by Keith D. Leonard
• Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice by Mark R. Warren
• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward
• The Gangs of Zion: A Black Cop’s Crusade in Mormon Country by Ron Stallworth, with Sofia Quintero
• The Grammar of Good Intentions: Race and the Antebellum Culture of Benevolence by Susan M. Ryan
• The Harvest of American Racism: The Political Meaning of Violence in the Summer of 1967 edited by Robert Shellow; with a foreword by Michael C. Dawson
• Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts edited by Anne Goodwyn Jones and Susan V. Donaldson
• Haunted City: Three Centuries of Racial Impersonation in Philadelphia by Christian DuComb
• Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Hate on the Net: Extremist Sites, Neo-Fascism Online, Electronic Jihad by Antonio Roversi, Lawrence Smith
• Hatreds: Racialized and Sexualized Conflicts in the 21st Century by Zillah Eisenstein
• How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society by Manning Marable; foreword by Leith Mullings
• How Racism Takes Place by George Lipsitz
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• How We Can Win: Race, History and Changing the Money Game That’s Rigged by Kimberly Jones
• I Am a Man! Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement by Steve Estes
• I Don’t Hate the South: Reflections on Faulkner, Family, and the South by Houston A. Baker, Jr.
• I Don’t See Color: Personal and Critical Perspectives on White Privilege edited by Bettina Bergo and Tracey Nicholls
• I’m Not a Racist, But…: The Moral Quandary of Race by Lawrence Blum
• Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement by Kathleen M. Blee
• Inventing Black Women: African American Women Poets and Self-Representation, 1877-2000 by Ajuan Maria Mance
• Jim Crow’s Legacy: The Lasting Impact of Segregation by Ruth Thompson-Miller, Joe R. Feagin, and Leslie H. Picca
• The Machinery of Whiteness: Studies in the Structure of Racialization by Steve Martinot
• The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea by Christopher J. Lebron
• Mark One or More: Civil Rights in Multiracial America by Kim M. Williams
• Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
• Men’s College Athletics and the Politics of Racial Equality: Five Pioneer Stories of Black Manliness, White Citizenship, and American Democracy by Gregory J. Kaliss
• Mixed Messages: Multiracial Identities in the “Color-Blind” Era edited by David L. Brunsma
• My Vanishing Country: A Memoir by Bakari Sellers
• The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions by Billy Hawkins
• The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration by Carol M. Swain
• Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm by Robin DiAngelo
• No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice by Karen L. Cox
• Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America by Stacey Abrams
• Pay to Play: Race and the Perils of the College Sports Industrial Complex by Lori Latrice Martin, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, and Nicholas D. Hartlep
• Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and Off the Field by David J. Leonard
• Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives Are Surveilled and How to Work for Change by Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith
• Pragmatism and the Problem of Race edited by Bill E. Lawson and Donald F. Koch
• The Psychoanalysis of Race edited by Christopher Lane
• Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things by Ann Laura Stoler
• Race and the Making of American Political Science by Jessica Blatt
• Race in Society: The Enduring American Dilemma by Margaret L. Andersen
• Race Still Matters: The Reality of African American Lives and the Myth of Postracial Society edited by Yuya Kiuchi
• Race Traitor edited by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey
• Racial Glass Ceiling: Subordination in American Law and Culture by Roy L. Brooks
• Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights by Robin Bernstein
• Racial Justice and the Catholic Church by Bryan N. Massingale
• Racial Justice in America: A Reference Handbook by David B. Mustard
• Racial Middle: Latinos and Asian Americans Living Beyond the Racial Divide by Eileen O’Brien
• Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics by Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith
• Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations by Joe R. Feagin
• Reading Race: White American Poets and the Racial Discourse in the Twentieth Century by Aldon Lynn Nielsen
• Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege by Shannon Sullivan
• Richard Wright and Racial Discourse by Yoshinobu Hakutan
• Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools by Stuart Biegel
• The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon
• Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male by Tim Wise
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• State of Emergency: How We Win in the Country We Built by Tamika D. Mallory as told to Ashley A. Coleman; forewords by Angela Y. Davis and Cardi B
• Stain Removal: Ethics and Race by J. Reid Miller
• Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
• Teaching Race and Anti-Racism in Contemporary America: Adding Context to Colorblindness edited by Kristin Haltinner
• Theorizing Discrimination in an Era of Contested Prejudice: Discrimination in the United States by Samuel Roundfield Lucas
• They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery
• This Book Is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell; illustrated by Aurelia Durand
• Through Our Eyes: African American Men’s Experiences of Race, Gender, and Violence by Gail Garfield
• The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom by Barbara Smith
• Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal by Andrew Hacker
• Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
• The Ethnic Project: Transforming Racial Fiction into Ethnic Factions by Vilna Bashi Treitler
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Hidden Rules of Race: Barriers to an Inclusive Economy by Andrea Flynn, Susan R. Holmberg, Dorian T. Warren, Felicia J. Wong
• The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth by Kristin Henning
• The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States by Eric A. Weed
• The South Never Plays Itself: A Film Buff’s Journey Through the South on Screen by Ben Beard
• The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy by Michael G. Hanchard
• The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
• The Changing Nature of Racial and Ethnic Conflict in United States History: 1492 to the Present by Leslie V. Tischauser
• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward
• The Gangs of Zion: A Black Cop’s Crusade in Mormon Country by Ron Stallworth, with Sofia Quintero
• The Grammar of Good Intentions: Race and the Antebellum Culture of Benevolence by Susan M. Ryan
• The Harvest of American Racism: The Political Meaning of Violence in the Summer of 1967 edited by Robert Shellow; with a foreword by Michael C. Dawson
• The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea by Christopher J. Lebron
• The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions by Billy Hawkins
• The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration by Carol M. Swain
• The Psychoanalysis of Race edited by Christopher Lane
• The Racial Glass Ceiling: Subordination in American Law and Culture by Roy L. Brooks
• The Racial Middle: Latinos and Asian Americans Living Beyond the Racial Divide by Eileen O’Brien
• The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States by Eric A. Weed
• The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools by Stuart Biegel
• The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon
• The South Never Plays Itself: A Film Buff’s Journey Through the South on Screen by Ben Beard
• The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy by Michael G. Hanchard
• The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
• The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom by Barbara Smith
• Theorizing Discrimination in an Era of Contested Prejudice: Discrimination in the United States by Samuel Roundfield Lucas
• They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery
• This Book Is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell; illustrated by Aurelia Durand
• Through Our Eyes: African American Men’s Experiences of Race, Gender, and Violence by Gail Garfield
• Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
• Teaching Race and Anti-Racism in Contemporary America: Adding Context to Colorblindness edited by Kristin Haltinner
• Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise
• White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism edited by Ashley “Woody” Doane and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
• White Racism: The Basics by Joe R. Feagin, Hernán Vera
• Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, the Conservative Movement, and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama edited by Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White
• Writing/Teaching: Essays Toward a Rhetoric of Pedagogy by Paul Kameen

Source: AP News/ Defense.Gov