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Dear John,
Nothing less than freedom of thought is at stake here.
The far right is seeking to close down young minds, threatening actions against teachers and school librarians who make available any books the extremists consider objectionable. Especially targeted are books about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. And the extremists are putting teeth in these laws, including criminal penalties.
In the first half of the 2022-23 school year, there have been more than 1,477 book bans across the country, affecting at least 874 titles. This is not even counting the wholesale shutdown of libraries by educators afraid of losing their jobs, or worse.
And it isn’t just Florida and Texas, either. Book bans by local governments have afflicted thirty-seven states so far, including California, Michigan, and New York.
It’s time to fight back, hard. States can ban book bans. That’s right, a state can just outright ban banning books. Illinois just did it; Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed legislation requiring public school libraries to adopt policies to “protect against attempts to ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to books or other materials.”
Governors in other states need to follow Illinois’ lead and keep public libraries free of censorship and manipulation by far right extremists. Click here to sign onto our letter, or write your own.
Well-funded right-wing organizations like Moms for Liberty claim to be protecting children, but they are actually acting to tamp down diversity, eliminate critical analyses of race relations, and make great works of literature inaccessible. They have been joined by the violent white supremacist Proud Boys, leaders of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, at school board meetings, and at rallies in efforts to harass librarians and sow divisiveness in communities nationwide.
If reading a book can help put one in another’s shoes, these radical groups want to keep people’s shoes tightly laced and tied with double knots.
Fortunately, in Illinois, the ban on book bans has teeth as well. It’s linked to over $62 million in funding for hundreds of public libraries and school libraries throughout the state.
What has started in Illinois, can be replicated. Pro-democracy governors, like Gavin Newsom (CA) and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) must lead the fight to ban book bans in their state.
And anti-democracy governors, like Ron DeSantis (FL) and Gregg Abbot (TX), who want to censor individual thought and freedoms, need to feel the heat of public backlash.
Sign and send a direct message to your governor now.
Thank you for fighting back against those who want to limit the power of thought.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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