Some of the most banned books during the 2024-2025 school year, as tracked by PEN America.

A federal judge in Virginia has ordered the Pentagon to restore books and curriculum that were removed from its schools following efforts by the Trump administration to weed out perceived “wokeness” from the military and education.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Department of Defense in April on behalf of six military families who objected to the actions taken at schools in the Department of Defense Education Activity, often referred to as DoDEA, in the weeks after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

More than 67,000 students attend classes at DoDEA locations in the United States and 11 other countries.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles’ Oct. 20 ruling is only on a preliminary injunction the ACLU requested in May, meaning it is in place as litigation continues, and only applies to the five schools attended by the children involved in the lawsuit.

The Department was ordered both to "immediately restore the library books and curricular materials" removed since Jan. 19 and barred from any "further removals."

Tolliver Giles previously ordered that the list of nearly 600 books affected by the department's actions be made public. They included "A is for Activist" by Innosanto Nagara, "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen" by Jazz Jennings and "From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation" by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

The ACLU called the Oct. 20 ruling an “important victory.”

““The censorship taking place in DoDEA schools as a result of these executive orders was astonishing in its scope and scale, and we couldn’t be more pleased that the court has vindicated the First Amendment rights of the students this has impacted,” ACLU senior staff attorney Emerson Sykes said.

USA TODAY reached out to the Defense Department for comment.

Among the plaintiffs was Jessica Henninger, a mother of children in DoDEA who previously told USA TODAY she felt “helpless” amid the changes because of its operation by the Department of Defense, which the Trump administration has renamed the Department of War.

“It’s a slippery slope if you’re going to start saying that the federal government can dictate what is allowed and what is not allowed to be taught to our children,” she said. “You’re opening up the door there to a lot of executive overreach and politicization of an education system, which is just not something that is ever okay.”

BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at bjfrank@usatoday.com.

USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge orders Department of Defense to restore books removed from schools over 'wokeness'

Reporting by BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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