House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y) slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after nearly 400 books were pulled from the Naval Academy library this week in the Trump administration’s latest DEI purge.
“These DEI hires in the Trump administration, like Pete Hegseth, the so-called Secretary of Defense – Dumb Effing Individuals – continue to try to test our resolve and cancel our history,” Jeffries said in a video posted to X.
“The latest is a book ban at the Naval Academy that removes works, including those about slavery, the civil rights movement and the Holocaust. At the same time, keeping books written by Adolf Hitler,” he added.
This week the Naval academy library pulled 381 books from its shelves on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism.
Among the books pulled were Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Janet Jacobs’ “Memorializing the Holocaust,” “Half American,” about African Americans in World War II; and “A Respectable Woman,” about the public roles of African American women in 19th century New York, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is still on shelves at the academy the New York Times reported. Also, still at the library is “The Bell Curve,” a book which argues that Black people are less intelligent than white people. The Times noted that a critique of ‘The Bell Curve’ was pulled.
“Apparently for these extremists, racist Nazi ideology and White supremacy is okay,” Jeffries said. “We’re going to keep the pressure on these extremist who continue to try to whitewash our history. We’re going to keep the pressure on until this book band is reversed and Pete Hegseth is fired.”
Navy spokesman Cmdr. Tim Hawkins confirmed that the books were pulled “in order to ensure compliance with all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president.”
