A U.S. federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to restore LGBTQ+ books and diversity lessons in American military schools. The ruling reverses a ban introduced under orders from Republican governors, which led to the removal of books with queer characters and discussions of gender identity from Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) classrooms. “The censorship taking place in DoDEA schools as a result of these executive orders was astonishing in its scope and scale. We couldn’t be more pleased that the court has vindicated the First Amendment rights of the students this has impacted,” said Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. The decision marks a major win for free speech and LGBTQ+ students in military families. #FreeSpeech #LGBTQBooks #education #USPolitics #Censorship #lgbtqia