Jackie Robinson, American hero, removed from Naval Academy library

One reading that students at military academies should engage in are biographies, particularly those of heroes.

And Jackie Robinson is a veritable hero.

Yes, a hero, but the students at the US Naval Academy will never be able to read about the first black athlete to play Major League Baseball. Call it what you want, but he is being excluded because he is a black African-American and many people in this country despise because with similar backgrounds like his.

Why?

I guess that I should not be surprised. I just gave a speech last year about how the KKK killed my uncle because he was Catholic, so I know about the history of oppression in this country.

However, to keep young people from reading about an American hero is antithetical to everything value that the country supposedly represents.

Here is what happened.

Naval Academy should be ashamed

This is the gist of the story about how people with different backgrounds are being denigrated in America,

A biography about Jackie Robinson has been identified as a candidate for removal from the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy due to a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordering the school to identify books with diversity, equity and inclusion themes and remove them from circulation, according to the New York Times.

The Robinson biography is reportedly one of 900 books identified as conflicting with the order, with other examples including “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.” and “Einstein on Race and Racism.”

Jack Baer, Yahoo, March 29, 2025

If the Naval Academy teaches what is best about America, it should be ashamed at its despicable action.

Who was Jackie Robinson?

Here is a little about the great hero,

Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier as its first Black athlete. The infielder made his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, and went on to have a decade-long Hall of Fame career despite repeated threats and abuse from fans and opponents.

Also a vocal civil rights activist, Robinson served on the board of the NAACP and advocated for greater racial integration in sports. He died in 1972 at age 53. MLB retired Robinson’s jersey, No. 42, in 1997, and the league celebrates his legacy and accomplishments annually on Jackie Robinson Day …

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia. The youngest of five children, he was raised in relative poverty by a single mother. His older brother, Matthew, inspired Robinson to pursue his talent and love of athletics. Matthew won a silver medal in the 200-meter dash—just behind Jesse Owens—at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Robinson attended John Muir High School in Pasadena, California, and Pasadena Junior College, where he was an excellent athlete and played four sports: football, basketball, track, and baseball. He was named the region’s MVP in baseball in 1938.

He continued his education at UCLA, where he became the university’s first student to win varsity letters in four sports. In 1941, despite his athletic success, Robinson was forced to leave UCLA just shy of graduation due to financial hardship.

Robinson served in the Army from 1942 to 1944 as a second lieutenant in the 761st Tank Battalion. That unit went on to become the first Black tank unit to see combat in World War II, but Robinson was unable to join them due to his court martial for protesting a racist policy. He was later acquitted and went on to break MLB's color barrier.

“Who was Jackie Robinson?” Brittanica.

The academy’s library in Annapolis, Md., houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and more than 5,000 print journals and magazines, Commander Hawkins said.

Color me “Woke”

I was brought up to believe that all Americans were equal. That was the goal of the Declaration of Independence, and my Irish ancestors came to America to live a dream of a better life where all were equal.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution did not follow the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration. They allowed people to own slaves, and they did not give women the right to vote.

I believe in both of these, so I guess that I am woke,

The Pentagon and U.S. Naval Academy are proceeding with actions in support of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate “woke” initiatives throughout the federal government.

The U.S. Naval Academy said it had ended its use of affirmative action in admissions, reversing a policy it previously defended as essential for diversity and national security, according to a federal court filing on Friday. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office has ordered the Naval Academy to identify books related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion themes that are housed in the school’s Nimitz Library, and to remove them from circulation.

This week, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy decisions, Mr. Hegseth’s office became aware that the nation’s military service academies did not believe that President Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order to end “radical indoctrination” in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms applied to them, as they are colleges. The defense secretary’s office informed the Naval Academy that Mr. Hegseth’s intent was for the order to apply to the academies, and that the secretary expected compliance.

“The U.S. Naval Academy is fully committed to executing and implementing all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president and is currently reviewing the Nimitz Library collection to ensure compliance,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman. “The Navy is carrying out these actions with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives.”

John Ismay and Kate Selig, “Naval Academy Takes Steps to End Diversity

Policies in Books and Admissions,” March 28, 2025

This is disgraceful.