"I think it’s a mistake — a very tempting mistake to make — to take stock by looking at what we still have rather than what we have already lost. Two and a half months has not been enough time for Trump to quash every single opposition voice, dismantle the electoral system, successfully intimidate every single judge and bring every single publication to heel. Is that good? Of course. But there is no way he could have done all of that in less than three months. He has successfully destroyed more in two and a half months than even I, ever the catastrophizer, thought possible. He has enabled a secret police force, inflicting terror on millions of people in this country. He is rapidly normalizing disregard for the judiciary. He has brought a leading university and several giant law firms to their knees, and some large media companies have arguably assumed a supplicant position as well. That is a spectacular amount of institutional and societal damage, and I think damage is the more meaningful metric right now."
--Masha Gessen, ‘What Is Our Country Becoming?’ Four Columnists Map Out Where Trump Is Taking America. New York Times, April 4, 2025
400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library
by Johanna Alonso
April 3, 2025
Inside Higher Education
The U.S. Naval Academy has culled 400 books deemed to promote to diversity, equity and/or inclusion from its library at the insistence of the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press.
Last week, the Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Md., identified 900 potential books to review in response to orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to remove books containing DEI-related content, The New York Timesreported. That list included The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., Einstein on Race and Racism, and a biography of Jackie Robinson. A list of the books that were ultimately removed has not been released.
The nation's five military academies were also told in February to eliminate admissions “quotas” related to sex, ethnicity or race after President Trump signed an executive order to remove “any preference based on race or sex” from the military. Both the Naval and Air Force Academies have also completed curriculum reviews to remove materials that allegedly promote DEI, and a West Point official also told the AP that it was prepared to review both curriculum and library materials if directed to do so by the Army.
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by Johanna Alonso
April 3, 2025
Inside Higher Education
The U.S. Naval Academy has culled 400 books deemed to promote to diversity, equity and/or inclusion from its library at the insistence of the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press.
Last week, the Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Md., identified 900 potential books to review in response to orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to remove books containing DEI-related content, The New York Timesreported. That list included The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., Einstein on Race and Racism, and a biography of Jackie Robinson. A list of the books that were ultimately removed has not been released.
The nation's five military academies were also told in February to eliminate admissions “quotas” related to sex, ethnicity or race after President Trump signed an executive order to remove “any preference based on race or sex” from the military. Both the Naval and Air Force Academies have also completed curriculum reviews to remove materials that allegedly promote DEI, and a West Point official also told the AP that it was prepared to review both curriculum and library materials if directed to do so by the Army.
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https://kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/the-history-books-purged-from-the
As Universities Yield to Trump, Higher Ed Unions Fight Back
Federal Grant Cuts in Researchers’ Own Words (opinion)
https://kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/the-history-books-purged-from-the
The History Books Purged From the Naval Academy's Library
The Trump administration is engaged in something much worse than book burning. It is attempting to burn down the entire cultural infrastructure that supports the pursuit of history.
by Kevin M. Levin
April 5, 2025
Substack
I have not read most of the books on this list, but I do want to single out six that I have read:
Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew Delmont
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen
Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity by Donald Yacovone
Bind Us Apart: How Enligtened Americans Invented Racial Segregation by Nicolas Guyatt
The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon
No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice by Karen Cox
The six books listed here are all mainstream history texts, published by mainstream presses. All of these authors, apart from Loewen, who taught in a sociology department before his passing in 2021, are respected scholars, who teach in history departments around the country.
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Loewen and Yacovone write about the ways in which the textbooks in our classrooms have reinforced narratives of white supremacy and covered up racial violence.
Guyatt’s book focuses on the story of white liberals between the Revolution and the Civil War, who pushed for a color-blind society, only to end up advocating for separate republics for the races.
Gordon’s book does a fantastic job of exploring the rise of the second Klan in the 1920s above the Mason-Dixon Line.
Finally, Karen Cox’s book is the best introduction to the history and controversy surrounding Confederate monuments that we have.
There is nothing subversive about any of these books unless you believe that simply telling the story of American racism, in a way that is accessible to anyone, is problematic. I wouldn’t think twice about recommending any of these books to high school and college students or anyone else interested in these subjects.
I say this as someone who is conscious about the ways in which politics and other contemporary concerns can undercut scholarship. Though I certainly don’t believe that you need to be a trained historian to write history, I tend to recommend and read authors who have chosen to specialize in it. History is a craft and the ability to think historically is a skill that takes time.
Mainstream history has now become a target of the Trump administration. It’s no longer possible to argue that Trump and his goons are simply concerned with what they perceive to be ‘radical’ or ‘un-American’ scholarship. Anything that challenges or undermines a view of this country as never having struggled with any form of discrimination is now considered a legitimate target.
I’ve made this point before, but it bears repeating. This is not a conservative v. liberal or Democrat v. Republican issue. What we are witnessing goes far beyond any previous political or public debate about what should be permissible to exhibit, research, and teach about American history.
The Trump administration is engaged in something much worse than book burning. It is attempting to burn down the entire cultural infrastructure that supports the pursuit of history.
Read the Naval Academy’s list of removed books
April 4, 2025
New York Times
April 4, 2025
New York Times
A PDF version of this document with embedded text is available at the link below:
Download the original document (pdf):
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/b9f07d9ade92f6f0/fcc8f9ac-full.pdf
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/4146516/list-of-books-removed-from-usna-library/
Press Office
List of Books Removed from USNA Library
April 4, 2025
April 4, 2025
U.S. Navy Press Office
Here is the full list of books removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library collection March 31-April 1:
LINK HERE
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Here is the full list of books removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library collection March 31-April 1:
LINK HERE
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/us/supreme-court-trump-teacher-grants.html
Supreme Court Lets Trump Suspend Grants to Teachers
The justices allowed the Trump administration to temporarily suspend $65 million in teacher-training grants, which helped place teachers in poor and rural areas.
The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. voting with the liberal justices in dissent, amounted to an early victory for the Trump administration before the court. Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
by Adam Liptak and Abbie VanSickle
Reporting from Washington
April 4, 2025
New York Times
The Supreme Court on Friday let the Trump administration temporarily suspend $65 million in teacher-training grants that the government contends would promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, an early victory for the administration in front of the justices.
The court’s order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The temporary pause will remain in effect while the case is appealed.
The decision was 5 to 4, with five of the court’s conservatives — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh — in the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. voted with the court’s three liberal justices in dissent.
The order came in response to one of a series of emergency requests by the Trump administration asking the justices to intervene and overturn lower court rulings that have temporarily blocked parts of President Trump’s agenda.
The grants at issue in the case helped place teachers in poor and rural areas and aimed to recruit a diverse work force reflecting the communities it served.
In February, the Education Department sent grant recipients boilerplate form letters ending the funding, saying the programs “fail to serve the best interests of the United States” by taking account of factors other than “merit, fairness and excellence,” and by allowing waste and fraud.
Eight states, including California and New York, sued to stop the cuts, arguing that they would undermine both urban and rural school districts, requiring them to hire “long-term substitutes, teachers with emergency credentials and unlicensed teachers on waivers.”
Judge Myong J. Joun of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts temporarily ordered the grants to remain available while he considered the lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, rejected a request from the Trump administration to undo Judge Joun’s order, saying the government’s arguments were based on “speculation and hyperbole.”
In temporarily blocking the cancellation of the grants, Judge Joun said that he sought to maintain the status quo. He wrote that if he failed to do so, “dozens of programs upon which public schools, public universities, students, teachers and faculty rely will be gutted.” On the other hand, he reasoned, if he did pause the Trump administration action, the groups would merely continue to receive funds that had been appropriated by Congress.
In its brief order, the court said that the challengers had “not refuted” the Trump administration’s claim that “it is unlikely to recover the grant funds once they are disbursed.” By contrast, the order stated, “the government compellingly argues that respondents would not suffer irreparable harm” while the grants are paused. The court said it had relied on statements by the challengers that “they have the financial wherewithal to keep their programs running.”
In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, countered that allowing the grants to be terminated would “inflict significant harm on grantees — a fact that the government barely contests.”
She added: “Worse still, the government does not even deign to defend the lawfulness of its actions.”
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the teacher training efforts would be harmed by the court’s action.
“States have consistently represented that the loss of these grants will force them — indeed, has already forced them — to curtail teacher training programs,” she wrote.
When the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general, wrote in an emergency application that Judge Joun’s order was one of many lower-court rulings thwarting government initiatives.
“The aim is clear: to stop the executive branch in its tracks and prevent the administration from changing direction on hundreds of billions of dollars of government largesse that the executive branch considers contrary to the United States’ interests and fiscal health,” she wrote.
She added: “Only this court can right the ship — and the time to do so is now.”
In response, the states said that the justices should decide one dispute at a time.
The brief added that the cancellation of the grants had not been accompanied by reasoning specific to each grant. The boilerplate letters, it said, “did not explain how the grant-funded programs engaged in any of the purportedly disqualifying activities.”
Supreme Court Lets Trump Suspend Grants to Teachers
The justices allowed the Trump administration to temporarily suspend $65 million in teacher-training grants, which helped place teachers in poor and rural areas.
The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. voting with the liberal justices in dissent, amounted to an early victory for the Trump administration before the court. Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
by Adam Liptak and Abbie VanSickle
Reporting from Washington
April 4, 2025
New York Times
The Supreme Court on Friday let the Trump administration temporarily suspend $65 million in teacher-training grants that the government contends would promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, an early victory for the administration in front of the justices.
The court’s order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The temporary pause will remain in effect while the case is appealed.
The decision was 5 to 4, with five of the court’s conservatives — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh — in the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. voted with the court’s three liberal justices in dissent.
The order came in response to one of a series of emergency requests by the Trump administration asking the justices to intervene and overturn lower court rulings that have temporarily blocked parts of President Trump’s agenda.
The grants at issue in the case helped place teachers in poor and rural areas and aimed to recruit a diverse work force reflecting the communities it served.
In February, the Education Department sent grant recipients boilerplate form letters ending the funding, saying the programs “fail to serve the best interests of the United States” by taking account of factors other than “merit, fairness and excellence,” and by allowing waste and fraud.
Eight states, including California and New York, sued to stop the cuts, arguing that they would undermine both urban and rural school districts, requiring them to hire “long-term substitutes, teachers with emergency credentials and unlicensed teachers on waivers.”
Judge Myong J. Joun of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts temporarily ordered the grants to remain available while he considered the lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, rejected a request from the Trump administration to undo Judge Joun’s order, saying the government’s arguments were based on “speculation and hyperbole.”
In temporarily blocking the cancellation of the grants, Judge Joun said that he sought to maintain the status quo. He wrote that if he failed to do so, “dozens of programs upon which public schools, public universities, students, teachers and faculty rely will be gutted.” On the other hand, he reasoned, if he did pause the Trump administration action, the groups would merely continue to receive funds that had been appropriated by Congress.
In its brief order, the court said that the challengers had “not refuted” the Trump administration’s claim that “it is unlikely to recover the grant funds once they are disbursed.” By contrast, the order stated, “the government compellingly argues that respondents would not suffer irreparable harm” while the grants are paused. The court said it had relied on statements by the challengers that “they have the financial wherewithal to keep their programs running.”
In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, countered that allowing the grants to be terminated would “inflict significant harm on grantees — a fact that the government barely contests.”
She added: “Worse still, the government does not even deign to defend the lawfulness of its actions.”
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the teacher training efforts would be harmed by the court’s action.
“States have consistently represented that the loss of these grants will force them — indeed, has already forced them — to curtail teacher training programs,” she wrote.
When the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general, wrote in an emergency application that Judge Joun’s order was one of many lower-court rulings thwarting government initiatives.
“The aim is clear: to stop the executive branch in its tracks and prevent the administration from changing direction on hundreds of billions of dollars of government largesse that the executive branch considers contrary to the United States’ interests and fiscal health,” she wrote.
She added: “Only this court can right the ship — and the time to do so is now.”
In response, the states said that the justices should decide one dispute at a time.
The brief added that the cancellation of the grants had not been accompanied by reasoning specific to each grant. The boilerplate letters, it said, “did not explain how the grant-funded programs engaged in any of the purportedly disqualifying activities.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court and writes Sidebar, a column on legal developments. A graduate of Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002. More about Adam Liptak
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting. More about Abbie VanSickle
A version of this article appears in print on April 5, 2025, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Justices Let Trump Halt Teacher-Training Funds. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper
See more on: U.S. Supreme Court, Education Department (US), U.S. Politics, Donald Trump
