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John,
During the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, there have been more than 1,477 instances of books being removed from school classrooms and libraries, affecting at least 874 unique titles, often on the basis of just a single complaint, and most often prior to receiving any kind of review.
This is an increase of 28% over the same period last year.
And the actual numbers are much higher, because this does not account for instances where schools have closed or removed entire libraries full of books, for fear of individual teachers, librarians, or other school staff being held criminally responsible for not adhering to new and vaguely written state laws.
To be removed from a classroom or library, each of these books had to first be selected by educators for their educational value. Many of the titles are instantly recognizable, high profile books that belong on required reading lists, such as A Handmaid’s Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Enough is enough! Sign the petition to call for no more book bans! Ensure students have the right to read and think for themselves!
According to an analysis by PEN America, the 11 most frequently targeted books so far in 2022-23 are nearly all about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals, such as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey.
In fact, books about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals are among the most frequently targeted overall. 30% of the banned books are about race, racism or people of color, and 26% feature LGBTQ+ characters or themes.
Due to wholesale bans of long lists of titles, increasing numbers of books also deal with challenging topics such as violence and abuse (44%), health and wellbeing (38%), and death and grief (30%).
A combination of local and state level policies have contributed to the highest concentrations of book bans in five states: Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina. These states are harbingers of things to come, as other states are moving toward enacting similarly restrictive laws and policies.
The banning of books with any sexual content as “pornographic” means that many books dealing with issues of sexual health and well-being will no longer be available to students, even in high school. And the vagueness of some state laws, in some cases even including criminal penalties, also contributes to a chilling effect amongst educators, or any school staff or visitor who might provide a child with a book.
For instance, in Florida, there can be no discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity through 3rd grade (HB 1557), no discussion of how race may confer advantage or disadvantage, even in high school (HB 7), and schools must catalog every book (HB 1467). New Florida Board of Education rules go even further, to state that violations can result in losing one’s teaching credential and livelihood.
In Missouri, it is now a criminal misdemeanor for a librarian or teacher to give a student any “explicit sexual material” -- but this is not clearly defined. As one Missouri librarian related, “We had one librarian who began pulling absolutely everything because the fear became so overwhelming… Others wound up shutting down their library for periods of time just so they could ensure they had gone through everything.”
Similar laws in Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and Arizona have also resulted in “wholesale bans” where entire school library collections are removed for fear of legal reprisals against individual educators.
Rupi Kaur, author of the frequently banned book of poetry, Milk and Honey, stated “It’s so unfortunate and kind of disturbing just to see the way those poems about our experiences -- about the abuse that we endure -- are now the reason that this book is being banned.”
Now is the time to protect students’ freedom to read, to take in a variety of viewpoints, to expand their minds, and to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Please add your name here.
This is why we read in the first place!
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
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