You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post about book banning, featuring news and opinion roundups, personal observations, and reviews.
YCRT! News & Opinion Roundup
Yes, McKinney is using a photo of Nazi youth partaking in a book burning to argue that banning LGBTQ books in public schools is good. She says banning these books “is not only justifiable but the only moral option, it’s our duty in fact to purge our schools of such filth” pic.twitter.com/TeLOxkngFW
— MMA ? (@Emmamae143) August 23, 2022
Me speaking at the Granbury ISD school board meeting tonight . Granbury ISD is continuing to purge books. The folks that show up at every meeting demanding books be removed , not a single one is a GISD parent. Yet , the school board seems to be giving them everything they want . pic.twitter.com/CUqCacoqYI
— Adrienne Quinn Martin (@MrsAMartini) August 23, 2022
The Right in the US Has a New Bogeyman: Libraries (The Guardian)
… the censorship frequently pushed by conservative groups is linked to wealthy rightwing donors even as they masquerade as grassroots efforts, with names like “Moms for Liberty” and “Parents Defending Education”. EveryLibrary, a political action committee for libraries, reports that many states have passed laws to change how libraries handle complaints about books, making it easier to remove them. Republican legislators, who loudly claim they are all for freedom of speech, are working to change how library board members are appointed and challenging laws that protect librarians and teachers from prosecution should they be accused of sharing something someone could find offensive.
Schools Slammed over Decision to Remove Bible, Anne Frank Adaptation (Newsweek)
The Keller Independent School District spokesperson told Newsweek the Bible was challenged by a parent because of “inappropriate content including: sexual content, violence including rape, murder, human sacrifice, misogyny, homophobia, discrimination, and other inappropriate content.” Meanwhile, the graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s Diary was challenged by a parent who requested moving the book to a high school level instead of young children, according to the spokesperson who added that the parent said that children’s mentality is “premature to understand the concept that is given in the book.”
Will You Just Look At All This (Straight) Library Smut? (Wonkette)
… the Jamestown Township defunded Patmos Library because the library was carrying some LGBTQ-themed books and a bunch of Christian Nationalists calling themselves “Jamestown Conservatives” were sad about it and worried that said books would kill their children in cold blood turn their children gay or bi or trans.
Book Bans, Lawsuits Resurgent 40 Years After ‘Island Trees’ (Bloomberg Law)
Forty years after the US Supreme Court ruled that school boards can’t take books off library shelves simply because they disagree with ideas or viewpoints, book challenges have erupted anew as a political and cultural flashpoint.
Wanted: Student Plaintiffs to Fight Back in Court Against Districts Removing Books (School Library Journal)
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan organization with a mission to defend and promote free speech, wants to help high school students strike back against school districts removing books from libraries and classrooms—and help solidify legal backing of the First Amendment right to access to books.
School Librarians in Missouri Pull Books as New Law Allows Charges for ‘Eexplicit’ Material (St Louis Post-Dispatch)
School librarians across Missouri are pulling books from shelves as they face the potential for criminal charges under a new state law banning “explicit sexual material.”
In Rare Move, School Librarian Fights Back in Court against Conservative Activists (NBC News)
Amanda Jones, a librarian at a middle school in Denham Springs, Louisiana, filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday, arguing that Facebook pages run by Michael Lunsford and Ryan Thames falsely labeled her a pedophile who wants to teach 11-year-olds about anal sex.
Schools Banned Books about Black Life. Black Kids Are Reading Anyway. (NBC News)
Christina and Renee Ellis, students at Central York High School, a predominantly white school in Pennsylvania, helped reverse a book ban targeting the work of Black authors.
115 Books in Collier Schools on LGBTQ+, Race and Sex Get Advisory Label (Naples FL Daily News)
The books with advisory labels include those with LGBTQ+ characters, transgender characters, characters of color, sexual content and some are picture books for young children.
Opinion: Salman Rushdie Has Risked His Life for Decades; U.S. Must Stand Up against Censorship, Too (KAKE.com, Wichita KS)
Rushdie was prescient about the threats to freedom in the United States. On June 3, 2020, as then-President Donald Trump led a campaign built on fomenting racial division, Rushdie wrote in The Washington Post: “I have lived in the United States for 20 years and been a citizen for the past four. One of the most important reasons for becoming a citizen was my admiration for the ideas of freedom embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Trump, whose regard for the Second Amendment is well known, needs reminding of the First, which, if I may help, states in part that ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’ “
Students Lose Access to Books amid ‘State-Sponsored Purging of Ideas’ (Washington Post/gift link)
“This is a state-sponsored purging of ideas and identities that has no precedent in the United States of America,” said John Chrastka, EveryLibrary’s executive director. “We’re witnessing the silencing of stories and the suppressing of information [that will make] the next generation less able to function in society.”
In a video with over 855,000 views, a Texas-based librarian at a Belton ISD middle school alleges that she was approached by her principal the day before school started. During this confrontation, he told her that she needed to take down a display that featured banned books in honor of Banned Books Week, held from Sept. 18 to 24.
Katy ISD Police ‘Examined’ Library Book after Complaint Claimed It Was ‘Harmful to Minors’ (News of Canada)
A Katy ISD police officer temporarily removed a copy of a book from a high school library last month as part of an investigation after a woman filed a criminal complaint alleging the district was providing “harmful” materials to minors.
The Brooklyn Public Library Gives Every Teenager in the U.S. Free Access to Books Getting Censored by American Schools (Open Culture)
For a limited time, the library will offer a free eCard to any person aged 13 to 21 across the United States, allowing them free access to 500,000 digital books, including many censored books.
Related: Teacher Quits in Protest after Being Punished for Banned Books SignTelling Her Students about It (Washington Post)
Summer Boismier only got through one day of the school year before a parent complained and administrators descended on her high school classroom to investigate. Days later, she quit in protest of a new Oklahoma law that restricts teaching about race and gender.
YCRT! YGBSM Dept.
A book about George Dawson, the grandson of a slave who learned to read at 98, is currently under review for removal by Carroll ISD.
The school where the book is currently found? George Dawson Middle School. Story by @memangrum.https://t.co/DgocpAil9n #txed #tellEWA
— ? Lauren McGaughy (@lmcgaughy) August 23, 2022
Naval Academy Accused of Teaching CRT, Sued for Records (Newsweek)
“Marxist Critical Race Theory and its racial division have no place in the Naval Academy, which is training the next generations of Navy leadership,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement on Tuesday. “That the Pentagon has been unlawfully hiding these records for a year suggests something awful is afoot.”
Tennessee Teachers Barred from Having Classroom … Books (Wonkette)
So hooray for the good, patriotic, terminally aggrieved parents of Tennessee. Now that teachers have to make sure every last scrap of paper (and video, and other formats) is subject to public scrutiny, maybe they’ll finally stop promoting PornHub in class (an actual complaint) and indoctrinating innocent first graders with Marxism by suggesting they share.
Texas Schools Require Clear Bags to Prevent Students from Bringing in Books (The Onion)
Calling the new policy a “necessary” safety measure, administrators from Keller Independent School District confirmed Friday that all students were now required to use clear bags in order to prevent them from bringing in books.
This one’s parody. I know you know that, but just in case someone doesn’t …
— Paul
Conservative Activists Want to Ban 400 Books from a Library — But They Aren’t Even on Shelves (NBC News)
… the activists in this town of 2,500 people wanted the books pre-emptively banned. They fumed that the library planned to join the American Library Association, a nonprofit trade organization known for fighting censorship that local activists falsely accused of “promoting pedophilia.” They started a campaign to recall four of the five library trustees over a policy against restricting access to controversial books, putting up signs around town that read: “Our Mission is to protect children from explicit materials and grooming.”