South Carolina and Arkansas have eliminated AP African American history classes, in case you were thinking the ongoing tide of book banning was solely about getting naughty books away from minors.
The governors of Florida and Illinois are loudly arguing about Florida’s “revisions” to history. Pritzker is fighting DeSantis before the College Board, advocating for a full accounting of history including the contributions of Black queer Americans.
It’s now been a two-year effort to prosecute librarians in Texas.
Arizona wants a “code of conduct” to prevent young people from reading any book with LGBTQ content.
Local Francis Howell District’s muddled mess also made this week’s Book Riot roundup, as did Wisconsin, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, St. Charles Mo., Florida, Texas (again), Florida (again), Missouri (again), Florida (again), Virginia, Nevada, Idaho, and Florida (again). In the latter case, a public official is yelling to remove a book that has already been removed from the school library.
In one case, Florida will compel a 7-year-old to testify over her parents’ protests.Good news? Court rulings in Texas reiterate that banning books violates the First Amendment (again).
Public libraries in Colorado and California were able to stave off bannings thanks to legislation at the state level.
Dayton, Ohio Public Library announced they will not be banning books. And Lansing, Mich. decided not to fire all its school librarians.
Vice President Kamala Harris strongly condemned book banning and “don’t say gay” policies in her speech to the American Federation of Teachers this week.
Bad: Bomb threats against libraries in Ontario, Sarasota, and Arkansas State, and a county board in Michigan fired an entire library board for refusing to ban books.
This is all in the last week.