Posted on 10/03/2025 6:54:18 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
A new report from PEN America tracks restrictions on school books across 45 states.
Restrictions on books in public schools have become “rampant and common,” according to a new report by the free speech organization PEN America, so frequent in some states that they are now considered “routine and expected part of school operations.”
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said the frequency and breadth of restrictions over the past four years has begun to desensitize Americans to the banning of books in schools.
“There’s this numbness we have,” Meehan said, “toward not just book bans, but restrictions on education that are showing up in many ways across our public school system.” When PEN America began tracking book bans, most of the activity took place on the local level, where national organizations and parent groups targeted one school board meeting at a time.
Then states like Florida got involved, passing legislation that made it easier to prohibit certain reading material in public schools. Those laws had a chilling effect, PEN said, as district officials who worried about being out of compliance proactively pulled books off shelves.
More recently, the federal government has had a say in which books are appropriate for children. In the wake of President Trump’s executive orders on education, a school system for military families run by the Department of Defense removed nearly 600 books this year, according to PEN America.
An A.C.L.U. lawsuit arguing that the move infringed on the First Amendment rights of students listed several of the titles, including Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” and a book about L.G.B.T.Q. figures called “A Queer History of the United States.”
Books with gay and lesbian themes continue to be a flashpoint. In June,...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I liked Great Expectations. It wasn’t as good as Tale of Two Cities.
Does it really matter when they can’t teach the children to read?
We all have different tastes in books or music!
I loved George Orwell’s books, but never was really into other classics. I think “A Christmas Carol” was the only Dickens book I liked.
“wonder how many public schools have unedited copies of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn on their shelves?”
Gasp....can you imagine what Mark Twain would say about that?
All my old copies were lost in the Almeda fire.
The Todd Series, 1, 2 & 3
Todd Has Two Dads
Todd’s Two Dads Go To Prison
Todd Is A School Shooter
No books have been banned. Try Amazon.
Pronto.
To hell where they belong.
Earth to NYT: Stop with the lies. Public schools not wanting certain books is not “banning” the book. You will never catch me buying a copy of your stupid lying paper, but that is not “banning” it. Not every book is gonna be in every school library...even books you really really really want forced into them.
“Restrictions on books in public schools have become “rampant and common,”
Good. Not every book on every subject needs to be available to all students. Schools have always made decisions on what books to include in the library or classroom but nobody ever called that banning until parents started objecting to sexually explicit books being available even for elementary students.
Perversion books are not education PERIOD. These meatheads need to be charged and sued for perversion of minor children.
BTTT
PEN said nothing when Charlie Kirk, champion of free speech, was shot.
They want your kids to read trans affirming garbage. Telling them to stop won’t do it. They will have to be forcefully shut down.
Where was this clown when they banned Huck Finn decades ago?
IIRC, libtards have banned Tom Sawyer, et al, because Mark Twain used the “N” word.
That’s true.
Big time!
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