EK v. DoDEA

Between January 20th and January 29th, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Orders 14168, 14185, and 14190, which ban topics such as “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology” from federally funded K-12 education. Since then, the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), which provides pre-kindergarten, elementary, and secondary education to approximately 67,000 dependents of military personnel around the world, has removed books, parts of curriculums, and cultural awareness celebrations from school grounds.

DoDEA has placed hundreds of school library books in “quarantine,” reviewing them for permanent removal. These books include award-winning titles such as To Kill A Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, The Kite Runner, A Queer History of the United States, as well as hundreds of other books about gender, class, and race. Additionally, DoDEA educators have been instructed to alter their curriculums to remove mentions of gender, race, immigration, and various facets of developmental health.

The ACLU is representing a group of DoDEA students ranging in grades from pre-kindergarten to high school whose educational opportunities have been limited by these executive orders. The lawsuit asserts that President Trump’s Executive Orders infringe on the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights and seeks the reinstatement of removed books and curricula.

Students in Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools on military bases sued on April 15, 2025, arguing that DoDEA’s book removals and curricular changes following several executive orders from President Donald Trump violate their First Amendment rights. DoDEA operates 161 schools across 11 countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico.