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Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library?

Published

11 months ago

April 11, 2025

Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library?

Gone is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma.

Two copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves.

Gone is “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered.

“The Camp of the Saints” by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries, has been embraced by white supremacists and promoted by Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser.

“The Bell Curve,” which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But a critique of the book was pulled.

The Trump administration’s decision to order the banning of certain books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library is a case study in ideological censorship, alumni and academics say.

Political appointees in the Department of the Navy’s leadership decided which books to remove. A look at the list showed that antiracists were targeted, laying bare the contradictions in the assault on so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

“Initially, officials searched the Nimitz Library catalog, using keyword searches, to identify books that required further review,” Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman, said in a statement on Friday. “Approximately 900 books were identified during the preliminary search. Departmental officials then closely examined the preliminary list to determine which books required removal to comply with directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president.”

“This effort ultimately resulted in nearly 400 books being selected for removal from the Nimitz Library collection,” he added.

At most university libraries, books that the Navy’s civilian leadership banned — like “The Second Coming of the KKK,” Linda Gordon’s account of how the Klan gained political power in the 1920s — and “The Camp of the Saints” would coexist on nearby shelves.

The Naval Academy, a 179-year-old institution in Annapolis, Md., has produced generations of military officers, many of whom have become leaders in industry, Congress and the White House. The Department of the Navy’s purge of 381 books there picked sides in the racism debate, and those that examine and criticize historical and current racism against Black Americans lost.

To academics, there is real concern that the actions of the Navy’s civilian leaders run counter to the purpose of higher education, as well as to the academy’s stated mission to educate midshipmen “morally, mentally and physically” so that they can one day “assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.”

“I think it does a real disservice to the students to suggest that they can’t handle difficult ideas or face ideas they disagree with,” said Risa Brooks, a professor of political science at Marquette University. “We are training these people to go out and command troops and to lead people potentially in war. We want them to be resilient, because what they’re going to face is far worse than a book on a bookshelf with a title that possibly makes them uncomfortable.”

“That’s really underestimating them,” she added.

In response to an order by the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, civilian Navy officials picked the books that were removed from the academy’s Nimitz Library, which contains nearly 600,000 publications, reference texts, novels and works of nonfiction.

Officials began pulling books off the library’s shelves the evening of March 31 and completed the purge the next morning, before the defense secretary visited that day.

The actions have caused a stir among some of the school’s alumni, who include four-star admirals and generals as well as other high-ranking government and elected officials.

“The Pentagon might have an argument — if midshipmen were being forced to read these 400 books,” said Adm. James G. Stavridis, an author, academy alumnus and former commander of all U.S. forces in Europe. “But as I understand it, they were just among the hundreds of thousands of books in the Nimitz Library which a student might opt to check out. What are we afraid of keeping from them in the library?”

One of the admiral’s recent books specifically cited Ms. Angelou’s memoir as a valuable resource for helping military leaders understand the diversity of viewpoints that make up the armed forces.

“Book banning can be a canary in a coal mine and could predict a stifling of free speech and thought,” he added. “Books that challenge us make us stronger. We need officers who are educated, not indoctrinated.”

William Marks, an alumnus of the academy and a retired Navy commander, set up a GoFundMe campaign to purchase books from the banned list and provide them to academy midshipmen.

“These are among the most intelligent students in the world, who we are entrusting to go to war,” he said. “What does this say about the Pentagon if they don’t trust these young men and women to have access to these books in the library?”

Commander Marks is working with a bookstore in Annapolis to have a banned books table where midshipmen can get a free book from the list. He aims to expand the effort to hand out books at off-campus events such as Naval Academy football games.

“Conservatives should be just as outraged at banning books as liberals are,” he said. “This should be a bipartisan issue.”

Representatives Adam Smith of Washington and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, both Democrats, denounced the removal of the books in a letter on April 4 to John Phelan, the Navy secretary.

They called the move “a blatant attack on the First Amendment and a clear effort to suppress academic freedom and rigor” at the school and “an alarming return to McCarthy-era censorship.”

The purge at the library is extremely rare and possibly unprecedented at an institute of higher education, said Philomena Polefrone of American Booksellers for Free Expression, a group representing independent booksellers.

“Most of these books are not about D.E.I.,” she said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “They’re by or about L.G.B.T.Q.+ people, or Black people, or anyone who is not a white, cisgender, heterosexual man.”

The Naval Academy is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which last certified the school in June 2016. The commission’s criteria for schools include “a commitment to academic freedom” and a climate that should foster “respect among students, faculty, staff and administration from a range of diverse backgrounds, ideas and perspectives.”

In a statement, Nicole Biever, the commission’s chief of staff, said her organization was aware of reporting about the books being removed from the academy’s library but was not reconsidering the school’s accreditation as a result. The commission sent a letter to colleges and universities on Feb. 14, Ms. Biever noted, that offered help in maintaining their credentials while also “ensuring compliance with all applicable legal or government requirements,” such as executive orders from the White House.

With President Trump’s political ideology beginning to curtail academic freedoms, Professor Brooks said that discussing one of the now-banned books in class could have added value for future military officers.

“Libraries don’t have these books because they are indoctrinating people,” she said. “They can help expose them to different ideas they may not have encountered before.”

It is similar to a point made by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, where Republican members complained that the military academies were teaching “critical race theory.”

“I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin,” General Milley said at the hearing, in June 2021. “That doesn’t make me a communist.”

He then offered an argument for expanding political studies in the service of defending the Constitution after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it,” the general continued. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building, and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?”

That books touching on racism would be banned from a library dedicated in honor of Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, a 1905 academy graduate and five-star naval hero of World War II, seems incongruous with his actions during the war, when the military was still racially segregated.

Notably, in 1942, Admiral Nimitz personally bestowed the service’s second-highest valor award, the Navy Cross, to a Black enlisted sailor named Doris Miller for his courageous actions during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Nimitz recognized the historical significance of the award at the time.

“This marks the first time in this conflict that such high tribute has been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race,” the admiral said. “And I’m sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts.”

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News

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Published

2 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Getty Images, Dept. of Homeland Security and The White House via X/Collage by Emily Bogle/NPR

Two days after At Chandee, who goes by Ricky, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the White House’s X account posted about him, calling the 52-year-old the “WORST OF WORST” and a “CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN.”

Except that the photo the White House posted was of a different person. The post also incorrectly claimed Chandee had multiple felony convictions — he has one, for second-degree assault in 1993 when he was 18 years old. He shot two people in the legs and served three years in prison.

At “Ricky” Chandee with his wife, Tina Huynh-Chandee.

Via the Chandee family

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Via the Chandee family

Chandee, who came to the U.S. as a child refugee, was ordered to be deported back to his home country, Laos. But Laos had not been accepting all of the people the U.S. wanted it to, so the federal government determined that it was likely infeasible to deport him, his lawyer Linus Chan told NPR. Chandee therefore was granted permission to stay in the U.S. and work so long as he checked in with immigration authorities periodically. He has not missed a check-in in over 30 years and has not had another criminal incident.

People who know Chandee do not see him as “worst of the worst.”

After Chandee completed his prison sentence, he finished school and became an engineering technician. He worked for the City of Minneapolis for 26 years, became a father, and his son grew up to join the military.

In his free time, Chandee enjoys hiking and foraging for mushrooms, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“We are proud to work alongside At ‘Ricky’ Chandee,” said Tim Sexton, Director of Public Works for the City of Minneapolis in a statement. “I don’t understand why he would be a target for removal now, why he was brutally detained and swiftly flown to Texas, or how his removal benefits our city or country.” Chandee is petitioning for his release in federal court.

Chandee’s case is not unique

Social media accounts from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and other immigration agencies have spent much of the past year posting about people detained in the administration’s immigration crackdown, typically portraying them as hardened, violent criminals. That’s even as over 70% of the people detained don’t have criminal records according to ICE data.

NPR’s research of cases in Minnesota shows that while many of the people who have been highlighted on social media do have recent, serious criminal records, about a quarter are like Chandee, with decades-old convictions, minor offenses or only pending criminal proceedings. Scholars of immigration, media and criminal law say such a media campaign is unprecedented and paints a distorted picture of immigrants and crime.

A year into President Trump’s second term, the X accounts of DHS and ICE have posted about more than 2,000 people who were targets of mass deportation efforts. Starting late last March, DHS and ICE began posting on X on a near daily basis, often highlighting apprehensions of multiple people a day, an NPR review of government social media posts show.

Among the 2,000 people highlighted by the agencies, NPR identified 130 who were arrested by federal agents in Minnesota and tried to verify the government’s statements about their criminal histories.

In most of the social media posts, the government did not provide the state where the conviction occurred or the person’s age. Public court records do not tend to include photos so definitive identification can be a challenge.

NPR derived its findings from cases where it was able to locate a name and matching criminal history in the Minnesota court and detention system, in nationwide criminal history databases, sex offender databases, and in some cases, federal courts and other state courts.

In 19 of the 130 cases, roughly 1-in-7, public records show the most recent convictions were at least 20 years ago.

Seventeen of the 19 cases with old convictions did include violent crimes like homicide and first-degree sexual assault. ICE provided some of those names to Fox News as key examples of the agency’s accomplishments. “It’s the most disturbing list I’ve ever seen,” said Fox News reporter Bill Melugin on X, highlighting the criminal convictions of each person on the list.

For seven people, their only criminal history involved driving under the influence or disorderly conduct.

ICE agents approach a house before detaining two people in Minneapolis on Jan. 13.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

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Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Six of the 130 Minnesota cases highlighted by the administration involved people with no criminal convictions. The government’s social media posts for those six instead rely upon the charges and arrests as evidence of their criminality, even though arrests don’t always lead to charges and charges can be dismissed.

In yet another case, the government highlighted a criminal charge even while noting it had been dismissed. (The person did have other existing convictions.)

For 37 of the 130 people, NPR was unable to confirm matching criminal history after consulting the databases and news coverage. Some of the names turned up no criminal history at all. The government said these people committed crimes ranging from homicide and assault to drug trafficking, and cited one by name to Fox News. NPR tried to reach out to all 37 people and their families for comment but did not receive a response from any.

In a statement to NPR, DHS’s chief spokesperson Lauren Bis did not dispute NPR’s findings or provide documentation where NPR wasn’t able to confirm matching criminal history.

“The fact that NPR is defending murderers and pedophiles is gross,” Bis wrote. “We hear far too much about criminals and not enough about their victims.” before listing four of the people with old convictions of homicide and sexual assault, underlining the date of deportation order for three of them.

Images designed to trigger emotion

The stream of social media posts with photos of mostly nonwhite people are meant to draw an emotional response, says Leo Chavez, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. They “have been used repeatedly over and over to get people to buy into, really drastic, drastic and draconian actions and policies,” he said.

Chavez, whose most recent book is The Latino Threat: How Alarmist Rhetoric Misrepresents Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, recalls how political campaigns in past decades presented images of Latinos — often men — without context. “Just by showing their image, showing brown people, particularly brown men, it’s supposed to be scary.”

The fact that the government’s social media posts come with statements about criminal history as well as photos reinforces that emotional response, Chavez said. DHS has previously acknowledged inaccuracies on their website. But even if the department issues corrections, Chavez said, “the goal was actually achieved, which was to reinforce the criminality and the visualization.”

CNN’s analysis of DHS’s “Arrested: Worst of the Worst” website showed that for hundreds out of about 25,000 people posted on the website, the crimes listed were not violent felonies. Instead, DHS listed people with records that included traffic offenses, marijuana possession or illegal reentry. DHS said the website had a “glitch” that it will fix but also that the people in question “have [committed] additional crimes.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this when it comes to immigration enforcement in the modern era,” said Juliet Stumpf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who studies the intersection of immigration and criminal law. She said the drumbeat of social media posts focused on specific individuals was like “FBI’s most wanted posters” or “like reality TV shows.”

Then-DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Madison Sheahan (left), and Acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, speaks during a news conference at ICE Headquarters, in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

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Jose Luis Magana/AP

Stumpf drew a parallel with an incident from the 1950s when the U.S. government deported two permanent residents suspected of being communists. “The government was kind of proclaiming and celebrating their deportation because getting rid of these communists was making the country safer,” said Stumpf, “Maybe that’s comparable to something like [this].”

An analysis by the Deportation Data Project shows a dramatic increase in arrests of noncitizens without criminal records during President Trump’s current term compared to President Biden’s term.

“If you look at research, immigrants actually tend to commit fewer crimes than even U.S. citizens do. And that’s true of immigrants who have lawful status here and immigrants who don’t,” said Stumpf. “If we have a number of social media posts that are painting immigrants as the worst of the worst…it’s actually really putting out a distorted version of reality about who immigrants actually are.”

Some claims are disputed by other authorities

In some posts, DHS and ICE have also used photos of people and statements about their criminal histories to burnish the federal government’s accomplishments, defend their agents and criticize states like Minnesota. State and local authorities have in turn pushed back, and some of the federal government’s claims about the people it has detained have been met with setbacks in the courts.

DHS accused Minnesota’s Cottonwood County of not honoring detainers, written requests by ICE to hold prisoners in custody for a period of time so ICE can pick them up. In one post, the agency identified a person who was charged with child sexual abuse, writing “This is who sanctuary city politicians and anti-ICE agitators are defending.”

The Cottonwood County sheriff’s office said DHS’s post “misrepresented the truth” in their own post on Facebook. According to their account, the county did honor the detainer but ICE said it was unable to pick up the person before the order expired and the county had to release the suspect.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections wrote in a blog post that dozens of people DHS listed on its “Worst of the Worst” website were not arrested as DHS described, but were transferred to ICE by the state because they were already in state custody. The Corrections Department has since launched a page dedicated to “correct the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) repeated false claims.”

The “Worst of the Worst” website has some overlap with the department’s social media posts, but it contains a much larger number of people — over 30,000 nationally. It included a Colombian soccer star who was extradited to the U.S., tried in Texas, convicted of drug trafficking and served time in federal prison. The website incorrectly describes him as being arrested in Wisconsin. The soccer player, Jhon Viáfara Mina, recently finished his sentence early and returned to Colombia, according to Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco.

In some instances, DHS and ICE wrote about incidents where they ran into conflict when carrying out arrests. In those posts, they named the arrestees and posted their photos. But in one case where the incident went to court, the government’s account of the events shifted. After a federal agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis in January, DHS claimed he was lodging a “violent attack on law enforcement.” Assault charges against Sosa-Celis fell apart in court as new evidence surfaced, and the officers involved were put on leave.

Despite the fact that the charges were dropped, DHS’s post profiling Sosa-Celis remains online.

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Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Published

14 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.

During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.

The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.

Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.

Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.

The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.

The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.

“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.

The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.

During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.

Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.

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Read Judge Schiltz’s Order

Published

24 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM

Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26

Page 5 of 17

and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.

Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)

On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.

Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)

On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.

Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)

On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.

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