Over the past year, the Republican party has launched an aggressive attack on public education that appears clearly aimed at energizing right-wing voters in advance of this November’s congressional midterm election.
Since January 2021, 42 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism, sexism and gender identity. Seventeen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.
According to analysis from PEN America, more than 1,000 books have been banned in 86 school districts in 26 states across the U.S. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law bans instruction or classroom discussion about LGBTQ issues for kindergarten through third grade and empowers parents to sue the school district over teachings they don’t like. Inexplicably, on April 18, the Florida Education Department rejected 54 mathematics textbooks for its K-12 curriculum, citing the math book’s inclusion of critical race theory and Common Core learning concepts.
CHRIS FINAN: I’ve been in this business now for 40 years. I started, you know, in the early ’80s, right in the beginning of the last culture war, which was in part, you know, triggered by the conservative resurgence following the election of Ronald Reagan. And it was measured in terms of a sudden increase in the challenges to books in schools and libraries.
And it got pretty bad. It jumped up to over 1,300 challenges a year. There was a counterpart in the legislatures, the Congress and the administration created a Meese Commission on Pornography, and we were off to the races. Well, as bad as that was, and it lasted for easily 10 years, this seems to be worse.
What’s present in this instance is a much more direct role by elected officials and people running for office who have chosen to exploit fears about books again and the teaching, the so-called “indoctrination” of students by teachers, and some librarians have been called pedophiles and in some context and accused of grooming children by exposing them to LGBT books.
And I’m afraid there’s no end in sight right now, I think because of the role of politics is playing in this. You know, we fear that the rest of this year leading up to the midterm (elections) is going to continue to stoke the fires. And then, of course, we’ll have a two-year campaign for president.
So we’re all frankly — those of us who work in this field — are a little tired. But, you know, I’m pleased to say that, you know, as happened in the 1980s, there is a rallying going on both at the local level and state level of people who are pushing back, including kids who object to the fact that books are being taken out of their hands.
So, you know, we have a real fight underway.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right. Chris, I wanted to ask you how communities are effectively fighting back against the censorship and this moral panic. That is an obvious appeal to parents to be fearful and to attract votes in the midterm elections this November. What’s been effective and are you seeing enough parents in community members rising up to oppose some of these really draconian and frankly ludicrous charges that are being thrown around in these communities?
CHRIS FINAN: Well, if the question is, are there enough? No, there aren’t enough, I’d say we’re at an early stage in this fight. And, you know, what we saw in the late 80’s was it takes time for the opposition to form. But the first evidence is out. You know, like the first the coming of spring are beginning to be seen.
There are people who are going to their school boards and speaking out against the challenges. But it’s a very, very difficult environment. And they are very much in the minority still. We’ve seen students protesting. We’ve seen students forming clubs, banned book clubs so that they can read. The New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library recently opened their e-book borrowing to anybody around the country, to any kids who can’t find the books or not being allowed to see the books in their schools.
The American Library Association, whose membership is really under the gun, has begun a campaign called Unite Against Banned Books that will serve as kind of as an umbrella for organizing in the states. The Texas Library Association has created Texans for the Right to Read to serve the same purpose on the state basis.
But it’s right now, very much an uphill fight because you have to be willing to have people call you a pedophile or somebody who is trying to hurt kids in any way. And there’s a lot of anger in the community. So, the whole idea of a review committee having to sit down in front of a public gathering of citizens is is a terrifying prospect in reviewing whether or not a book should stay in the library or not.
So I’m confident that this is going to fail at at some point. The polls show that over 70 percent of Americans are against book banning. But it’s going to take time to bring that that force to bear.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Chris Finan (17:50) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
For more information, visit the National Coalition Against Censorship at ncac.org.
