Book Bans 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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SOURCE: Popular Information
1/9/2023
Students of Teacher Behind 150+ Book Ban Requests Detail History of Racism, Homophobia
by Judd Legum
The classroom conduct and public social media statements of a Florida teacher who is exercising the provisions of new legislation to ban books presenting Black perspectives on racism show that the law can easily be hijacked by motivated bigots.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/12/2022
The Network of Groups Fueling the Spread of Book Bans
"In practice, the books most frequently targeted for removal have been by or about Black or L.G.B.T.Q. people, according to the American Library Association."
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SOURCE: Politico
10/24/2022
MAGA Mom Activists Heavily Represented on DeSantis Book Review Panel
Both transparency and expertise seem to have been ignored in the selection of conservative activists to staff a Florida panel implementing new restrictions on school libraries and in-classroom reading materials.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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SOURCE: Texas Tribune
5/17/2022
Texas Librarians Face Harassment as they Navigate Book Bans
While some librarians in the state have been fired for refusing to comply with bans, many others have or are contemplating quitting over political interference with their work and social media harassment.
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SOURCE: Texas Monthly
4/1/2022
The Texas School District Considering Banning "Maus" Needs to Reconsider
"Before reading Maus, if I had a sense of what Nazis were, it was as abstract villains, the bad guys Indiana Jones fought."
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SOURCE: Bloomberg
3/30/2022
Nikole Hannah-Jones: Book Bans "Inevitable Backlash" to 2020 Protest Wave
The journalist cited historian Timothy Snyder's argument that authoritarianism relies on restricting national understanding of civic identity in ways that serve existing power.
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SOURCE: CBS News
2/22/2022
Poll: Clear Majority Rejects Book Bans
Polling shows Americans reject banning books that address racism and believe in the value of difficult lessons.
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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.
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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."
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SOURCE: BBC
1/27/2022
Tennessee School Board Bans Holocaust Graphic Memoir "Maus"
Author Art Spiegelman called the decision "Orwellian" and suggested young people would be deprived of knowledge.
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