Laws enforcing ideological positions in education can gain popularity when they focus on unpopular ideas. But when they take effect to punish popular teachers, the public gets second thoughts.
When citizens invoked Utah's new "sensitive content" law to force the district to remove the Bible from school libraries, some hoped they had achieved a coup demonstrating the folly of the law. But the Bible has long been a part of cultural conflicts focused on schools, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon.
“It’s a real warning sign of a country that’s yearning for a return of authoritarianism,” Spiegelman tells Post columnist Greg Sargent of the challenge made against his graphic-format Holocaust history by residents of Nixa, Missouri.
The vagueness of provisions in the new law about "making available" material "harmful" to minors makes librarians and sellers afraid that even with separate children's sections they would face criminal liability for selling books to adults.
Kellie Carter Jackson and Kerri Greenidge explain how the push to restrict books and teaching on racism in Florida will affect teaching even in blue states.
The sociologist, whose books on racism have been banned, argues "U.S. book banning has been widespread and routinely targeted books with diverse ideas and perspectives for centuries now, especially those challenging white conservative sociopolitical ideas, norms and values."
Individuals who filed 10 or more challenges to books were responsible for two thirds of all complaints about books, suggesting a small group of political activists is driving the phenomenon.
A review by the department's civil rights unit concludes that Forsyth County, Georgia may have created a hostile learning environment for Black and LGBTQ students through its book removal policies.
Jen Cousins of the Florida Freedom to Read Project won't let the right claim the political mantle of "parents' rights" in increasingly contentious education politics.
While there is a groundswell of opposition to book removal policies and other restrictions on educational content, it remains to be seen whether Democratic politicians will commit to defending the importance of public education in a multicultural democracy.
Even in a conservative community in southwestern Missouri, a grassroots group of parents and students has rallied to oppose right-wing efforts to restrict books available in the local public schools.
"We will not allow DeSantis to kill our history," says Marvin Dunn. "We just won't allow it. We will take our history directly to the parents if that's what's required, and apparently, it is what is required."
Illustrator and author Garth Williams feigned incredulity that his tale of a white and black rabbit's romance ran afoul of Jim Crow sensibilities, but it's hard to see how else it was likely to be perceived, says Sharon Patricia Holland of the University of North Carolina.
“It is a whole new level of fear,” said Kathleen Daniels, the president of the Florida Association for Media in Education, a professional organization for school librarians and media educators. “There are books that are not being selected because they have been challenged.”
Although book-banners have the attention of the media and are being used by politicians to create wedge issues, it's important to remember that the policy is unpopular, and can be resisted.
Each of the five “common sense principles” the bill's sponsor articulates are already granted to parents. What the bill really seeks is to empowe political groups to dictate the content of education and advance the privatization of public schools.
The state education commissioner of Florida, Manny Diaz, has insisted that the state is not banning books. Civil liberties and library groups say that vague laws and public threats of prosecution are pushing educators to remove books without technically being forced to do so, which is the point.
Librarian Mary Grahame Hunter says libraries are places where children's rights and intellectual autonomy are respected. Some in her Michigan community are working to change that.
A study of the books flagged for restriction in Duval County, Florida in the last two years suggests that a particular political vision is driving the bans, focusing on LGBTQ themes and racial and religious diversity. But a fear of adolescents' developing autonomy also seems to be in play.
