It’s almost too hard to get to the bottom but make sure you force yourself to read every update just as a reminder as to what’s happening and I presume it’s all about to get much worse
Book Censorship News: January 24, 2025
- Las Cruces Public Schools (NM) heard complaints from the local far right contingent over 95 books in the district.
- The Community Library Network board in Kootenai, Idaho, is creating an adults-only room, has pulled 140 books from shelves, and wants to ban entire swaths of topics from future purchases for those under 18. Who is this public library for? The answer is the library board who believes they know better than parents and say as much.
- Continuing in Idaho, the public library board in Eagle decided to remove a community bulletin board because of a flier that caused controversy in Nampa, Idaho. Yes, a bigot who complained about an LGBTQ+ event flier—for an event not sponsored by the library—managed to get a community bulletin board removed from a completely different public library over their complaint.
- That same library in Eagle had drama over some library board appointments at the latest meeting, too.
- Cobb County School District (GA) just banned two more books from the district: Triangles by Ellen Hopkins and A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard.
- Legislators in Connecticut are proposing protections for library workers related to book censorship and were subsequently attacked by LibsofTikTok.
- “Senate Bill 19 from McCurtain Republican Warren Hamilton requires school districts to submit a list of library books available to students to the Oklahoma State Department of Education. It also bars schools from making, “pornographic materials or sexualized content accessible to students under the age of 18.” Districts that violate the law could have their accreditation downgraded to deficient and lose 5% of their state funding.” Some new damaging bills are being proposed in Oklahoma this legislative session . The one about no pornography in schools is a great one, given that there is no such thing as pornography in schools, no matter how much you claim there is.
- The right-wing packed Keller Independent School District (TX) school board wants to split their district into two. You know what they want to do? Make sure poor kids and kids of color don’t intermingle with their wealthy white kids.
- Little Miami School Board (OH) will not be imposing strict display rules in the schools. This is good, albeit bizarre, news, as now book displays can be whatever the creator wants them to be in the district (among other “displays,” of course).
- Though the Bible has not been banned in Canyons Independent School District (TX), the debate over its legality under the Texas Reader Act, HB 900, still remains.
- Librarians testified in South Dakota about how the governor’s proposed gutting of the State Library budget would harm public libraries statewide, especially in rural areas.
- Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation has been removed from the Darien Public Schools (CT) 4th grade curriculum. Note that the book will still be available in school libraries.
- The Gardner Edgerton School District (KS) school board voted to remove the book Lily & Duncan from shelves last month, and at this week’s meeting, the board heard from community members.
- A new defendant is joining the case in New York where Moms For Liberty has sued the Savannah-Clyde School District for not removing books they and their pastor friend deem “inappropriate.” That defendant? The New York State United Teachers.
- (Paywalled) Despite a petition signed by hundreds of bigots, the Middlebury Public Library (IN) will not remove books that some people think are inappropriate. This has been a fight going on for months in Elkhart.
- Utah students cannot have copies of books banned statewide on them when they go to school. That means personal copies or copies from public libraries.
- Manatee County Library (FL) is going to try to reconvene their library advisory board. The history of this one is bananas and I suspect that things aren’t going to be better with the new board.
- The writing of this piece is certainly interesting, given that library boards are nonpartisan. But here’s a story about how an appointment to fill a vacant board seat at the Mississippi Valley Library District (IL) could amplify “culture wars” (a misnomer for bigotry at the hands of a small group of far-right folks). Note that whatever happens in this seat doesn’t really matter since three seats are on the ballot for April.
- An Indiana republican wants to revoke the rights for libraries in the state to levy taxes for their institutions. He claims it’ll work well, but what he means by that is it will defund public libraries.
- More of this, please! The Teton County Library (WY) declared itself a book sanctuary and added a declaration of democracy into its policies.
- At some point, I want to write more about this story since it’s been included in these roundups now for almost a year, but the Supreme Court will be hearing a book censorship-related case this session, and it will have tremendous impact on book banning nationwide.
- A resident of Ferry County, Washington, believes that all children in her county are heterosexual, and thus, flags on display in the library constitute grooming. She is, of course, performing complaints about it.
- “Woods said the bill could undermine the autonomy of school boards and librarians, whom he said were the best positioned to made those decisions about educational materials.” This is about another proposed bill in Oklahoma requiring school districts in the state to submit annual lists of all the books in the schools because Daddy Government knows what’s best for the kids.
- Addison Central School District (VT) is still trying to decide what to do over books featuring transgender characters that two whole parents are complaining about. This bit, though: “There is a conspiracy theory that is currently floating around out there, that schools are administering hormone injections for students that are unsafe,” Orchez stated. “We don’t have enough nursing resources to hand out aspirin. We’re not changing people’s genders.”
- Seaside School Board (OR) heard complaints over the use of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian in one of their high school classes. You may recall Seaside, Oregon, dealt with complaints at the public library last year, thanks to the conspiratorial thinking of one of the community’s city councilmen. What happens in the public libraries moves to the schools if it’s not the other way around first.
- 11th grader Elise Duckworth has garnered almost 2,000 signatures in an online petition to push back against the controversial, demeaning policies that the Pine-Richland school district (PA) wants to implement regarding books in the schools.
- How Tennessee made it harder for those experiencing incarceration to access books.