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Book Bans

  • SOURCE: Why Are We Like This?
    1/28/2023

    The Case of the Disappearing Libraries Feat. Judd Legum

    Journalist Judd Legum has been following the story of Florida teachers whose districts have told them Florida's new educational laws require them to close or remove their classroom libraries unless all the books are specifically approved by the state. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    1/31/2023

    Florida Districts to Teachers: Hide Your Books or Risk Felony Charge

    After requiring that both classroom libraries and school libraries have their contents vetted by trained media specialists, Florida delayed publishing the training for six months; amid uncertainty two school districts have told teachers to cover up their books. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    1/24/2023

    College Faculty: After K-12, Curriculum Laws are Coming For You

    by James Grossman and Jeremy C. Young

    State colleges involved with concurrent enrollment programs that allow high school students to take classes for credit are already susceptible to laws purporting to fight "indoctrination" in the secondary school curriculum. More intrusions on academic freedom are coming. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    10/17/2022

    Book Bans Today Recall 1950s Panic over Comic Books

    by Jeremy C. Young and Jonathan Friedman

    Child psychologist Fredric Wortham had fough Jim Crow by theorizing the damage caused to Black children by segregation. He had a less likely role in supporting the idea that lurid plots in comic books would create a generation of emotionally damaged adults. 

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    9/20/2022

    Book Bans Reflect Outdated Views on How Children Read

    by Trisha Tucker

    Research shows that children are not vessels into which books pour ideas, but co-creators of meaning as they read and process a book. Yet today's moral panic imagines books breaking down barriers between innocent childhood and a corrupt world. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    9/16/2022

    American Library Association: Book Bans Accelerating

    “It represents an escalation, and we’re truly fearful that at some point we will see a librarian arrested for providing constitutionally protected books on disfavored topics,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the office of intellectual freedom at the library association.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    9/12/2022

    Today's Book Bans Might be Most Dangerous Yet

    by Jonna Perrillo

    Today's book banners have broadened their attention from communist themes in textbooks and are attacking young adult literature titles that students are choosing to read, a much more significant intrusion on freedom of thought. 

  • SOURCE: PEN America
    8/17/2022

    PEN America: The Nation's Censored Classrooms

    by Jeremy C. Young and Jonathan Friedman

    "The restrictions and chilling effects of gag order laws threaten to destroy the climate of open inquiry required in free and democratic educational institutions."

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    8/9/2022

    Fighting Back Against Book Banners

    by Margaret Sullivan

    Attempts to ban books from public libraries are a threat to democratic culture and should alarm all Americans, argues Post columnist Margaret Sullivan. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    2/10/2022

    How Will K-12 Book Bans Impact Higher Ed?

    Social media are enabling like-minded parents to network and amplify calls to remove books from schools and libraries. Experts argue that parents' success will fail children's intellectual development and college readiness. 

  • SOURCE: Black Enterprise
    2/2/2022

    Black Parents' Group Fights Texas Book Bans

    "The determined mothers of the Texas-based Round Rock Black Parents Association are speaking out against the multiple attempts of book bans in their kids’ schools."