Censorship Corner: "Err on the Side of Caution"

From Robin Abcarian's 1-31-24 LOS ANGELES TIMES Op-Ed piece entitled "Need Help Finding a Good Book? Try One Your 9th-grader Isn’t Allowed to Read":

At the end of last year, according to the Orlando Sentinel, “Paradise Lost” was one of 673 titles removed from public school classroom shelves in an Orlando-area district in response to new state laws that require librarians and teachers to review all classroom books and banish ones that are pornographic or depict “sexual conduct.”

As the Sentinel explained, “New state training … warns them to ‘err on the side of caution’ when approving books and warns that they can face criminal penalties and the loss of their teaching certificates if they approve inappropriate books.”

Florida’s censorship efforts are part of a book-banning frenzy sweeping through the more conservative parts of our allegedly free-speech-loving country.

“We have recorded instances of book bans in 30 states,” said Kasey Meehan, the Freedom to Read director at PEN America, which advocates for free expression and fights censorship. “Florida and Texas are leading the way, as well as Missouri, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Utah,” she said.

In Idaho, librarians are so demoralized by the censorious political climate — one official in the city of Buhl referred to the local librarian as a “groomer” — that more than half recently told the state’s library association that they are thinking of leaving the field, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.

Mostly, the pressure to censor is coming from the right, which has pushed book bans under the banner of “parental rights.” Efforts originating from the left, Meehan told me, often involve protests against white authors using the N-word. In 2020, the Burbank Unified School District took some books off required reading lists, such as Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” after parents complained that the books were racist. However, Burbank Supt. John Paramo told me Tuesday that they are still available in the school and classroom libraries.

Books targeted by conservatives often feature characters who are not white, or who are not heterosexual.

In January 2022, a North Carolina parent asked his school district to take “Dear Martin” off the required reading list in his son’s high school English class. Tim Reeves told a local TV news station that he did not object to the novel’s message about racial profiling, per se. Rather, he objected to the liberal use of vulgar words. “Words that start with the letter S,” as he put it. “Words that start with the letter F.”

“Dr. Martin Luther King would not want vulgarity or sexual innuendos [to] be used to teach the lesson about racism and brutality,” said Reeves. I don’t know about that. Seems like King would maybe have been more interested in ending racial profiling than worrying about how fictional kids talk.

To read Abcarian's entire article, click HERE.