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Jun 04 2022
Young adult authors of color are fed up with being targeted.
They're sick of seeing their books bogusly labeled "critical race theory" or "anti-police." They're incredulous at claims their words make kids uncomfortable. They're done seeing their books challenged or banned over what they see as insincere claims about vulgarity, violence or sex. They're exasperated with feeling singled out.
Groups that monitor censorship, including the ACLU, PEN America, American Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship, say it's more than a feeling. Since the killing of George Floyd, a Black father, by a White police officer, experts see Black and brown authors increasingly becoming the quarry of would-be censors, they say.
"The frank and difficult stories of being Black in America" are coming under fire, said NCAC spokesperson Nora Pelizzari.
"It's pure censorship of ideas and viewpoints, which I would argue should not survive constitutional scrutiny, but we're living in odd times these days," added Deborah Caldwell-Stone, a former lawyer who now directs the ALA's office of intellectual freedom.
While the ALA says half of the 10 most challenged books of 2021 were targeted for LGBTQ content -- another worrying phenomenon that intellectual freedom fighters say isn't to be downplayed -- the organization also saw a record number of challenges, many of them aimed at authors of color exploring history, racism or their own experiences in America...
May 20 2022
Approximately six weeks after holding a hearing to investigate the recent surge of book bannings in public school libraries and classrooms around the country, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a second hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning. This hearing addressed, in Maryland Congressman and subcommittee chair Jamie Raskin’s words, “the closely related nationwide assaults on the rights of teachers and students to engage in free speech in in the classroom," especially in discussions relating to race, racism, and LGBTQ issues.
After introducing into the record a letter condemning book bannings and censorship in public schools signed by 1,300 children’s and YA authors and illustrators, including Judy Blume, Rick Riordan, Mo Willems, and Jacqueline Woodson, Raskin pointed out that the term often invoked by those supporting restrictions upon classroom discussions of race and racism—“critical race theory”—used to be taught in law schools to explain “the stubborn hold of white supremacy and racism” in the U.S., even after 1954 and the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.
Critical race theory was never taught in public schools, Raskin noted; right wing zealots co-opted the term to “make it the name of everything they wanted to purge from public schools in America—specifically the actual history of race and racism in our country, as well as teachings about gender, sexual orientation and gender identity.” ...
May 17 2022
For those librarians working at schools and at public libraries, the pressure to keep some challenged books off the shelves is growing. And some Texas librarians say the insults and threats through social media and the added pressure from supervisors to remove books are taking a toll on the profession...
The Texas Tribune spoke to librarians in two independent school districts that have been at the center of book challenges and bans: Keller, northeast of Fort Worth, and Katy, west of Houston. One from each district spoke to the Tribune, but both asked that their names not be published because they feared harassment.
In Keller, local Facebook group pages and Twitter accounts have included pointed comments about librarians being “heretical” and portrayed them as pedophile “groomers” who order pornographic books. After a particular book challenge failed, one commenter included the phrase “pass the millstones,” a biblical reference to execution by drowning.
“It was heartbreaking for me to see comments from a community that I’ve loved and served for 19 years, directed towards me as a person,” the Keller Independent School District librarian said.
Apr 23 2022
A censorship battle at an Oklahoma library is calling attention to what critics say is the hypocrisy of legislative attempts to prohibit discussions and materials about LGBTQ issues.
Literary circles were up in arms after the Enid Public Library in Enid, Oklahoma, canceled a romance book club and a sexual assault awareness book display in response to the city's library board narrowly voting to ban displays and programs that featured content about sexuality....
"The library director is tasked with implementing the policy as written," Ray told CNN.
Though library staff have not publicly specified any motivation, literary advocates have taken their actions as commentary on how widely such a ban can be interpreted, despite originating with specifically LGBTQ content in mind.
Apr 07 2022
More than 1,500 book bans have been instituted in US school districts in the last nine months, a study has found, part of a rightwing censorship effort described as “unparalleled in its intensity”.
PEN America, a non-profit organization that works to protect freedom of expression in the US, scrutinized efforts to ban certain books from school libraries for its “Banned in the USA” report. The organization found that 1,145 books were targeted by rightwing politicians and activists, including the work of the Nobel prize laureate Toni Morrison.
Mar 15 2022
Penguin Random House has created a Banned Books Resources Hub that includes tools, materials and information that can help people and organizations fighting book bans including resources for teachers, librarians, parents, students and authors/illustrators.
Mar 01 2022
A banned book will be available to high school students in Wentzville, MO after the Wentzville School Board reversed its decision in the face of criticism and a class-action lawsuit.
The board voted 5-2 on Friday to rescind its earlier decision to ban Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. The board then voted 5-1, with one member abstaining, to accept a review committee’s recommendation to retain the book, which had been challenged by a parent.
The district made national news last month when the board voted 4-3 to removed The Bluest Eye from its high school libraries. Its action was part of a recent wave of book challenges and bans across the United States.
Feb 21 2022
...Republicans in several states have launched efforts to ban books pertaining to race and LGBTQ+ issues from classrooms, while some legislatures are pushing to introduce laws which would ban teachers from discussing homosexuality. Other states have already banned discussion of the modern-day impact of historic racism in the US.
It is a situation that has no parallel in America’s recent history. And in an interview with the Guardian, Stephanie Nossel, CEO of PEN America, a non-profit organization that works to protect freedom of expression in the US, said the efforts to censor education, in particular, fit in with a wider attempt by conservatives to influence society...
...While classroom censorship has become an eagerly embraced hobbyhorse for conservatives, there is little evidence that a majority of parents are demanding more censorship in the classroom or demanding more influence over what their children can read, or be taught.
A CNN poll in early February found that only 12% of Americans believed parents “should have the most sway over which library books are on the shelves and how American history is taught”...
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