You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post about book banning and censorship. YCRT! features news and opinion roundups, commentary, history, and reviews.
YCRT! Rant
This dystopian PSA originally aired in 2002. It’s 2025 now: picture the student in a midshipman’s uniform; the setting as the United States Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library. Are we there? Baby, we’re there.
Just 23 years later. ? pic.twitter.com/6lSeHO2ATW
— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) March 13, 2025
YCRT! News Roundup
100 Days Into the Trump Administration: Libraries Weather Attacks and Fight Back (American Libraries)
This week marks 100 days since President Trump’s January 20 inauguration. It has also been approximately 45 days since Trump signed the March 14 executive order that called for stripping the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) down to its “non-statutory and component functions.” […] Meanwhile, censorship attempts persist, IMLS staffers have been placed on leave, previously granted IMLS funding has been canceled, and library staffers continue to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain services for their communities.
Cy-Fair Isd’s School Board Removed Chapters in Books on Climate Change, Vaccines, and Diversity Despite State Approval (Click2Houston.com)
The excluded chapters cover topics that include global warming, diversity, and vaccines — subjects some consider fundamental to a modern education. The directive has resulted in a unique challenge for teachers: how to teach required state standards without using the state-approved materials that originally covered those standards.
Military Brats Slap Pete Hegseth with a Lawsuit over Book Removals (Daily Beast)
The lawsuit, filed on the students’ behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleges that their First Amendment rights are being infringed by the decision, which they argue places children in danger by depriving them of important information about health, hygiene, biology, and abuse.
Trump Allies Deploy “Book-Banning Pastor” to School Districts Across the Country (Popular Information)
In April 2023, Amanchukwu attended a meeting of the Wake County Board of Education in his home state of North Carolina with then-candidate for state superintendent Michele Morrow and other local activists. In his comments, Amanchukwu said that inappropriate books were being “purchased and delivered” to local schools as part of a plot by the “Democrat Party” that “castrates children, mutilates children, perverts children, grooms children, murders children, and indoctrinates children.”
Battle over Books (Rochester Beacon)
Last month, Penfield parent Jennifer Selever shared her concerns at a school board meeting about books in her fifth grader’s school library. One of them, “The Rainbow Parade,” contained age-inappropriate imagery, she contends. Selever’s complaints about the picture book, which tells the story of a family’s first time at a LGBTQ+ pride parade, include images of the naked backside of a man and two other men in leather harness outfits.
‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ Tops the Ala’s List of Most Challenged Books (NPR)
George M. Johnson’s memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue has been a target of book challenges for years. According to a new report by the American Library Association (ALA), it was the most challenged book of 2024.
Librarians Are Mad as Hell at the Trump Administration. They Think You Should Be, Too. (HuffPost)
The attack on public libraries is another example of how Trump has never had to rely on government services and “finds no value in them,” Schram said. “It is a stark reminder of how easy it is for someone who has apparently never utilized the services that libraries provide, to deprive those who desperately need those services from accessing them,” she said.
Alabama Board Defunds Local Library After Complaints over ‘Inappropriate’ Books (AP)
The Alabama Public Library Service Board of Trustees voted Thursday to withhold state funding from the Fairhope Public Library after complaints from conservative parents about books in the teen section. In the same meeting, the board voted to immediately dismiss the executive director of the state library agency, who had been planning to resign.
Rightwing Groups Across Us Push New Bans to Limit ‘Obscene’ Books in Libraries (The Guardian)
There are at least 112 proposed state bills concerning school – and public – libraries that seek to expand the definition of what is deemed obscene or “harmful to minors” and to limit librarian staff’s ability to determine which books are in their collections, according to the American Library Association. Judges have already declared some recent laws that banned books unconstitutional and if approved, the other legislation would probably face court challenges.
Texas Lawmakers Advance Bill That Makes It a Crime for Teachers to Assign “Catcher in the Rye” (Popular Information)
Lawmakers in Texas are seeking to impose harsh criminal penalties on school librarians and teachers who provide award-winning works of literature to students. Identical bills in the Texas Senate and House would make it a crime for librarians and teachers to provide books or learning materials that contain sexually explicit content, punishable by up to 10 years behind bars — whether or not a book has educational or literary merit.
YCRT! Rumor Mill
Would anyone be surprised if this turns out to be true? We all know they’re not going to stop with school and college libraries, or public libraries either. They’re coming for bookstores, too, and Trump’s hostility toward Amazon is a known known, widely reported. Will Bezos cave like some small-town Texas school board director?
p.s. AWS=Amazon Web Services