Braxton Taylor
Parents at Defense Department schools in Europe have been asking Congress to intervene as the school system for military children scrambles to implement orders from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to scrub anything promoting diversity.
Last week, the European Parent Teacher Student Association, which includes about 3,000 members across Department of Defense Education Activity schools in Europe, sent letters to House and Senate Armed Services subcommittees that have oversight of the schools, saying that vague guidance has led to an overly broad culling of materials.
Since the letter was sent, DoDEA has been responsive to parents’ concerns and corrected some issues itself, an official with the parents’ group told Military.com on Monday. Because of that, the group is no longer asking Congress to make DoDEA pause its implementation. But it still is planning to meet with a few congressional offices this week to impress upon them the importance of not undercutting the school system’s ability to provide a quality education to military students, including by ensuring school staff aren’t part of an upcoming mass firing at the Defense Department.
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“We reached out to all of these people in essentially an SOS,” said Kristen Smith, the vice president of legislation at the European PTSA and a military spouse who has a child in elementary school and another in middle school in the Ramstein Air Base area.
“We are at a point in our country where both sides have a different idea of what diversity looks like, but I hope and pray that they’re willing to sit down and have that conversation and to ensure that diversity is a positive word moving forward,” Smith added. “It’s not a bad one.”
Since his first day in office, Trump has issued a slate of executive orders demanding federal agencies end any program related to diversity, as well as barring any recognition of transgender people. The orders were ill-defined, leading to wholesale erasure of minorities and women that in some cases have been reversed after public outcry.
In line with Trump’s anti-diversity order, Hegseth also sent a memo declaring that Defense Department celebrations in honor of “identity” months and holidays, such as Black History Month, were “dead.”
At DoDEA, the orders have resulted in schools pulling books from library shelves while officials review whether they comply with the executive order.
It has also resulted in widespread confusion and overly broad interpretations about what symbols and decorations might run afoul of the orders, Smith said. For example, some kindergarten teachers removed decorations featuring rainbows, a symbol associated with LGBTQ+ rights, even though the decorations weren’t LGBTQ+ Pride rainbows, while other schools took down posters of civil rights icons such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks for fear they could be interpreted as celebrating Black History Month, Smith said.
Actions like that prompted last week’s letter to Congress, which argued “the lack of time allowed to carefully implement these policies is putting the excellent education our military children are receiving at great risk.”
“They need continued access to diverse perspectives and resources that empower them to navigate life’s difficulties with grace and compassion,” the letter said. “The rushed implementation threatens to strip away these essential tools, undermining the very foundation of their education.”
The letter was sent to the subcommittees for personnel and readiness on both the House and Senate Armed Services committees. Smith said she got an acknowledgment from the office of Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee, that they received the letter, but did not get any responses beyond that.
Spokespeople for Sullivan; Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee; and Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee, did not respond to Military.com’s requests for comment on the letter Monday.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee, decried “far-left, progressive Democrats politicizing our military” when asked about the letter.
“We need our military to be a fighting machine, not a playground for Democrats’ culture war,” he said in an email statement. “Thankfully, change is here. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth will promote readiness, restore lethality, and build confidence in our armed forces. With President Trump and Secretary Hegseth at the helm, our military will once again be 100% focused on protecting our country and putting America First on the world stage.”
Since sending the letter, the European PTSA has had conversations with DoDEA officials that made clear rainbows and posters of Black historical figures don’t need to be taken down, and those materials are starting to be put back up, Smith said.
“I’m not going to say everything’s perfect,” she said, but officials are “doing everything that they can at this point to make the corrections.”
In addition to parent concerns, students have also fought back against the executive orders and the effects on their education. Earlier this month, when Hegseth visited U.S. military bases in Germany, several dozen students reportedly walked out of Patch Middle School in Stuttgart in protest of the orders. And last week, Stars and Stripes reported that about 150 students at Nile C. Kinnick High School in Japan also staged a walkout.
While the subcommittee chairmen have not responded to Smith’s letter, Smith said parents did have meetings with staffers from five congressional officials last week and have three more meetings scheduled this week.
Even though they are no longer asking Congress to force DoDEA to pause its implementation of the executive orders, they want to ensure lawmakers are aware of the “incredible staff” at DoDEA as the military community braces for firings of about 5,400 civilians, she said.
“One of our concerns for most of our parents is, are we going to keep our teachers now?” she said. “At this point, it’s reiterating the fact that we need our DoDEA staff to make sure that we stay mission ready, that they’re extremely important.”
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