The American Historical Association has released a statement condemning “the removal of 381 books, including acclaimed historical works and widely used primary sources, from the United States Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library” as well as “what appears to be the expansion of this censorship policy to the full universe of military academies and other education institutions.” “Removing books that are based on careful historical research won’t make the facts of our nation’s history go away,” the statement reads. “But it will render the military unprepared to face their legacies and our future.”
To date, 10 organizations have signed on to this statement.
Military Libraries, Censorship, and History
Approved by AHA Council, May 2025
“People who do not know the past do not know the world well.”—From “Why We Teach History,” US Naval Academy History Department
The American Historical Association condemns the removal of 381 books, including acclaimed historical works and widely used primary sources, from the United States Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library. This removal of content on ideological grounds constitutes censorship, which has no place in any library or educational institution in the United States. The AHA condemns censorship regardless of the specific historical content or interpretive orientation of the material. In this case, the books removed from the Nimitz Library’s shelves tilt heavily towards histories of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Limiting cadets’ access to important aspects of our nation’s history endangers the education of future naval officers, leaving the Navy less prepared to protect the United States. Students attending the academies and other military educational institutions need a full and honest view of the histories, experiences, and perspectives of the men and women they will lead and of the collective national past we have made together, for better and for worse. Future leaders should have resources that include histories of their communities and those of the men and women with whom they will serve. Otherwise, we deny students the opportunity to develop the very skills officers need if they are to learn from the past and the respect not only for their colleagues in the military but for all people with whom they interact as representatives of our nation.
Given proper resources, students at our military academies and in-service educational institutes should be trusted to learn how to think historically, how to make judgements based on evidence. We echo the Naval Academy’s own website: “We teach midshipmen history because there is no better preparation for leadership than the study of history. We cannot understand the world today without knowing how it got that way—which is to say through history . . . . An effective leader masters the past in order to more effectively shape the future.”
The AHA views with similar dismay what appears to be the expansion of this censorship policy to the full universe of military academies and other education institutions: instructions, issued by the Department of Defense (DOD) on May 9, 2025, to “sequester” materials that DOD considers “promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology.” The DOD memorandum requires a review of materials that will apply the definitions of ‘discriminatory equity ideology’ and ‘gender ideology’ from Executive Order 14168, ‘Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, January 20, 2025.” This executive order misconstrues scholarship and is actually about neither extremism nor truth.
Removing books that are based on careful historical research won’t make the facts of our nation’s history go away. But it will render the military unprepared to face their legacies and our future.
The following organizations have signed on to this statement:
Berkshire Conference of Women Historians
California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Education for All
Labor and Working-Class History Association
LGBTQ+ History Association
Network of Concerned Historians
New England Historical Association
North American Victorian Studies Association
Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Western Society for French History