From “Critical Race Theory” to “Pornography,” the Book Banners are Back

BY HANK REICHMAN

I should have expected that those politicians demanding the removal from schools of books on “critical race theory” and other titles dealing with race and gender that might cause “discomfort” would inevitably fall back on that old standby of the book banners — the claim that school libraries and classrooms have been flooded with — hold onto your hats — pornography!  But there was Texas Governor Greg Abbott this week directing Texas education officials to investigate whether pornography is available in public schools and to notify law enforcement if such material is accessible.  In an official communication Abbott called on the Texas Education Agency, the State Board of Education and Texas’s library and archives commission to develop standards to prevent the presence of “pornography and other obscene content” in schools — though he didn’t specify what kind of standards.  The state agencies said they would comply with his request.

“The presence of pornography in schools is not only inappropriate, but it is also against the law,” Abbott wrote.  Yeah, I think that might be true, although it would depend on what you call “pornography.”  As Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, pointed out, Abbott cited a section of Texas Penal Code that deals with the sale or distribution of “harmful material” to minors, which has a very specific legal definition.  “It has to be utterly without redeeming social value,” he said.  “I think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to suggest that the books he has singled out in previous letters — or the other books that librarians have put in libraries that are works of literature — would possibly ever rise to these kinds of standards.”

Of course, if there’s anything more absurd than a school library intentionally acquiring and offering students genuinely illegal pornography, it is the notion that any adolescent looking for pornographic content would eagerly head for the school library and not, say, the Internet to find it.

Indeed, Abbott’s call hearkens back to earlier episodes of book banning, before porn became widely available online — but never actually in schools.  For some thirty-five years I edited the American Library Association’s Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom (now the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy) and wrote a book, Censorship and Selection: Issues and Answers for Schools, published in three editions.  In that role I regularly tracked efforts to remove or restrict school library and classroom materials.  For me, this is familiar territory.  I’m more aware than most that charges that even highly acclaimed adult, young adult, and juvenile materials are “obscene” or “pornographic” have long been a standby of a certain tendency in American politics and culture.  And often these charges only thinly veil “concerns” about other issues, especially race and gender rights and equity.

In other words, Abbott’s directive is really nothing new.  Except it’s also different.  “What has taken us aback this year is the intensity with which school libraries are under attack,” Nora Pelizzari, at the National Coalition Against Censorship, told the Washington Post.  She added that the apparent coordination of the effort sets it apart: “Particularly when taken in concert with the legislative attempts to control school curricula, this feels like a more overarching attempt to purge schools of materials that people disagree with.  It feels different than what we’ve seen in recent years.”

When I used to write about this issue for ALA, I sometimes feared that our rhetoric could occasionally seem as overblown as that of the would-be book banners, in particular when we would make scary comparisons between their efforts and historical incidents of book burning (e.g., the Nazis).  Well, in case you might also be concerned that we not overreact, take a gander at what two board members in Virginia said when the Spotsylvania County School Board by a 6-0 vote directed staff to begin removing books that contain “sexually explicit” material from library shelves.  “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” one member opined.  Another said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

Oh, and in case you forgot, two years ago students at a Georgia college publicly burned a book by Latina author Jennine Capó Crucet, after she spoke on campus. Reporting on this incident for this blog at the time, I wrote, “I wonder whether those who repeatedly wring their hands about a campus ‘free speech crisis’ when a few student protesters shout down — or just peacefully protest — racist and misogynist speakers will be equally agitated by those who burn a minority speaker’s book, leading to the cancellation of further events?”  In case you missed it, those hand-wringers pretty much ignored this incident.

Abbott’s officially mandated hunt for pornography followed a review launched last month by state Rep. Michael Krause (R), who is running for Texas attorney general.  Krause sent a letter to school superintendents targeting books that “contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”  Krause accompanied his request with a list of some 850 titles, most likely simply copy-and-pasted from key word searches in public library catalogs.

Krause’s list was subjected to an extensive analysis by writer Danika Ellis on BookRiot.  Her categorization of the titles gives some sense of the strange mindset of these politician-book banners.  It is worth excerpting at some length:

Perhaps the most disturbing trend I saw in this list is the challenging of books that teach students their rights.  Of all the things to teach in school or for kids to have access to, this is one of the most important.  To be clear, I’m not even counting books about reproductive rights or your rights as an LGBTQ person in particular.  These are titles like The Legal Atlas of the United States, Teen Legal Rights, Gender Equality and Identity Rights (Foundations of Democracy), Equal Rights, We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About Students, and Peaceful Rights for Equal Rights.

What does it say about an elected official that he would want books about students’ legal rights taken out of school libraries?  Who considers it dangerous for kids to know their rights? . . .

Sex education books for kids and teens have been facing increased censorship this year, including classics like It’s Perfectly Normal (yep, that one’s on the list!)  I was surprised by just how broad and sweeping the approach is on this list, though.  Not only is every book on human sexuality disallowed, from The Baby Tree to teen books about STIs, but also anything that mentions teen pregnancy, including YA novels.  About 5% of the books banned have to do with pregnancy.

Another strange consequence of this keyword approach is that a lot of books are listed that are ridiculous to think any library would currently have in stock.  There are so many outdated and cringe-worthy sex ed books on this list that no teenager in 2021 would pick up.  For example, The Reproductive System by Alvin Silverstein from 1971 or The Seventeen Guide To Sex and Your Body from 1996.  The list also includes books that are warning about the dangers of sex or that are teaching abstinence.

Along with books written for teens to understand their bodies and sexuality, this list also includes any books about abortion or pregnancy, including history books about Roe vs. Wade or debates about abortion. . . .

Based on Bill 3979 and Krause’s letter, you might expect this list to be mainly books about racism (which might cause white student “discomfort” — never mind the discomfort students of color face dealing with racism), and they’re certainly on there.  But in terms of sheer numbers, it’s LGBTQ books that make up more than half of the 850 books listed.

Neither Krause’s letter nor the bill mention LGBTQ topics, but that is most of what’s being targeted here: 13.9% of all the books challenged are trans specifically, almost as many as all the sex ed books combined.  Considering how few trans books are published, this is a huge number.  Krause doesn’t give any reason or justification for challenging LGBTQ books, despite them being the majority of the books listed. . . .

I cannot overstate what a weird, jumbled mess this list is, and after considering it seriously, I can conclusively say it should not be taken seriously.

First off, this isn’t actually a list of 850 titles.  The Pants Project, a middle grade LGBTQ book, and Not My Idea, an anti-racist picture book, are both on here twice.  Other books are listed in both English and Spanish versions, while Qué me está pasando?, Lucas y yo, and En el bosque are listed only in Spanish — presumably the English versions are okay to stock.  . . .

Almost one in five of the books listed, I have no idea why they’re included.  They’re average YA novels (with no LGBTQ content), as far as I can tell, or they’re nonfiction about innocuous topics.  Probably the one that has me the most stumped is Inventions and Inventors by Roger Smith from 2002.  What’s controversial about a book on inventions??

There is one book each from Michael Crichton (a 1993 medical thriller), James Patterson (Cradle and All), and Richard North Patterson (Protect and Defend (Kerry Kilcannon #2).  It looks like maybe two of them mention pregnancy?  But it’s very strange to see just one title each from these prolific authors — and ones that aren’t likely to be on the shelves at all.

Then we’ve got three adult romances from E. Lynn Harris, which again suggests that adult romance or erotica books in general are fine, but just not these particular ones.  (If you want to list every possible romance novel to prevent them being in a school library, good luck putting that together!)

And a potpourri of other random titles, including a five-book set of The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine and Eyes on Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs. . . .

Also, while the Texas State Teacher Association said that a district asking if they had to teach two sides to the Holocaust was an “overreaction,” there is a Holocaust history book on this list: Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust. . . .

With all of this being said, clearly I have spent more time on this list than Krause (or, let’s be honest, an assistant) did.  I’m disgusted that Krause expects every school district to spend time investigating whether they have any of the books on this list when it was put together so thoughtlessly.  The mistakes and strange choices on this document show how little care was put into it, and how little Krause must think of school officials, that they should comb their collections according to this hastily slapped together list.

I hope that school districts refuse to bow to this bullying and censorious tactic by the Texas lawmaker.  Not only is this list badly put together, with strange gaps, puzzling inclusions, and broadly applied keywords, but its goal is oppressive and dangerous.  Even if this list made any sense, that wouldn’t make it better.  Antiracist books, sex ed books, and LGBTQ books are exactly the kinds of topics that should be in school libraries.  They’re subjects that kids and teens are curious about, and they may not be things they feel comfortably speaking to their parents about.

Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and president of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019.  His Understanding Academic Freedom has recently been published. 

 

2 thoughts on “From “Critical Race Theory” to “Pornography,” the Book Banners are Back

  1. For more on this topic:
    Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska (AFCON)
    2021 Annual Meeting
    “Race, Sex, and Academic Freedom in Elementary Education”
    Saturday, November 13, 10am-12pm via Zoom
    open to all, no charge

    Register Here by November 11 to receive a Zoom link Nov. 12

    Panel Presentations
    1. Shee Covarrubias: A Papillion La Vista Community Schools parent’s recounting of the banning of Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice at PLCS.
    2. Elizabeth von Nagy: A school librarian talks about advocating for students and the action steps she took in connection with the removal of Something Happened in Our Town.
    3. Parent Pam Mock and Grandparent David Moshman: Reflections on reading the book Something Happened in Our Town with children, and the children’s reaction.
    4. Wyatt Packard: NLA Intellectual Freedom Round Table Chair speaks about controversy over the Nebraska Library Association’s Golden Sower Award chapter book nominee list.
    5. Sarah Centineo: Nurse/Lawyer/School board member shares her perspective on the importance and difficulties of new health care standards in public education.
    6. David Moshman: A short explanation of the AFCON Board’s Statement on “Race, Sex, and Academic Freedom in Elementary Education.”
    Questions for panelists (30 minutes)

    You can also find this information and register on the AFCON website:
    https://www.academicfreedomnebraska.org/november-annual-meeting.html

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