In North Texas, the day before students returned to classrooms, school districts ordered principals and librarians to remove Bibles and graphic novel adaptations of Anne Frank’s “The Girl’s Diary” from libraries and classrooms. .
The Keller Independent School District reviewed 41 books that were challenged last school year, but last week a policy approved by the district’s board of directors required staff to pull the books off the shelves so they could be reviewed again. must be
The last-minute book sweep is one of several changes in schools across the country to limit students’ access to books in the new school year. There are some of the most scrutinized books dealing with sexual and racial identity, challenging books at a pace not seen in years.
The Keller School District serves more than 35,000 students in parts of Fort Worth and other cities in northern Texas. The first day of school in the district was Wednesday. On Tuesday, school administrators sent an email shared with The New York Times to principals and librarians telling them to remove the specific challenged books by the end of the day. It included Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”.
According to online records on the district’s website, some books, such as “The Bluest Eye” and an adaptation of Anne Frank’s Diary, were approved by the committee and remained in the library after receiving a challenge last school year. was allowed to remain. Other books, including Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer,” have been removed from school district collections or allowed only in high school libraries or in specific locations on campus after initial review.
Movement to ban books across America
Parents, activists, school board officials and lawmakers are increasingly vying for access to their children’s books.
These books will be reviewed again. His seven-member board of directors for the school district adopted a new policy on his August 8th, requiring the district to reconsider all books that had been challenged in the previous year. In a statement, the school district said the guidelines used to determine whether books are allowed on shelves will be considered by the board at its next meeting scheduled for August 22. rice field. now.
“Once in place, librarians will be able to use those guidelines to review challenged books,” the statement said. “As soon as the book is approved through the new guidelines, it will be put back on the bookshelf.”
The school district said its administrative board was not available for an interview Wednesday morning.
Board chairman Charles Landcliff said in a Facebook post that the review was necessary “to protect children from sexually explicit content.” He wrote that he “exposed children to pornographic material.”
“The challenge process for these materials is passed through a committee made up of community and staff members, released to the public, and recorded on video and audio,” Dr. Randklev wrote.
Rainie Hawes, a parent of four children in the district, said she was one of about seven or eight people on the Anne Frank graphic novel judging panel. After reading the book and discussing its value for about 40 minutes, committee members unanimously decided it should be on the school shelf, she said.
“We left the room thinking we had saved the book,” Hawes said. “You just come back in a few months and say, ‘No, I don’t like your results, I’ll review all your books according to a strict list of requirements.'”
Efforts to remove books from libraries, bookstores and schools have always been made, but educators, librarians, parents and politicians say book bans are becoming more frequent. Tactics are also changing, with conservative groups in particular supporting these efforts in the election campaign.
In North Texas, the new Christian political action committee, Patriot Mobile Action, endorsed 11 school board candidates, all of whom won the election. His three of these candidates began serving on the Keller School District Board of Directors in May 2022.
Jonathan Friedman, director of the Free Speech and Education Program at PEN America, a free speech organization, said in a statement that the Keller Board of Education’s decision was “an appalling violation of students’ First Amendment rights.” Such an insult.”
“It’s virtually impossible to run a school or library that wipes out books in response to complaints from every nook and cranny,” Friedman said.
In the coming weeks, students across the country will be returning to school, and educators will grapple with new restrictions born of renewed pressure to ban books.
In Florida, in some schools, opponents are debating how certain books comply with a new law known as “Don’t Say You’re Gay.”
In a school district in Virginia, when a child borrows a book from the school library, parents are notified and asked to sign a consent form after receiving a syllabus with assigned reading material.