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‘Rampant’ Book Bans Are Being Taken for Granted, Free Speech Group Warns
The New York Times ^ | Oct. 1, 2025, 8:30 a.m. ET | Elizabeth A. Harris

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 ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: gaypredators; groomers; grooming; lgbtq

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1 posted on 10/03/2025 6:54:18 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Books with gay and lesbian themes continue to be a flashpoint.

Ya think?

2 posted on 10/03/2025 6:54:51 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Je suis Charlie Kirk.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
More recently, the federal government has had a say in which books are appropriate for children.

Pedophile groomers can't stand for that.

3 posted on 10/03/2025 6:56:26 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Je suis Charlie Kirk.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

They will do ANYTHING to get grooming porn into elementary school libraries.

“Books with gay and lesbian themes continue to be a flashpoint.” — Surprise, surprise, surprise!! I’m surprised the author didn’t lump tranny books into the stinking pile of trash.


4 posted on 10/03/2025 6:56:48 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

This is more of the madness, of course books the government puts in the children’s school library are carefully chosen and filtered.


5 posted on 10/03/2025 6:56:50 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
A book is banned when you can be criminally punished for having it or loaning it out.

It is not banned when you do not wish to have it in school libraries. Especially elementary and middle school libraries.

A book not being available in a public library is a bit closer to the concept of banning so let's talk about Abigail Sheere's book "Irreversible Damage" and why the American Library Association banned it..... wait.... where are you going?

Guess they had an appointment elsewhere.

6 posted on 10/03/2025 7:00:29 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (It's like somebody just put the Constitution up on a wall …. and shot the First Amendment -Mike Rowe)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I have family members in public education.
What they are seeing is not outright book bands.
But, simply age appropriate restrictions.
Not unlike movies or video games.
Be suspicious of anyone claiming otherwise.


7 posted on 10/03/2025 7:01:39 PM PDT by sjmjax
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Libraries have been censoring Christian and conservative books for decades. But they do so without fanfare and are not called out for it, so their hypocrisy at a much greater scale is little noticed.


8 posted on 10/03/2025 7:02:23 PM PDT by EnderWiggin1970
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Remove the porn from schools.


9 posted on 10/03/2025 7:05:30 PM PDT by Libloather (Why do climate change hoax deniers live in mansions on the beach?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The last couple of days news stories were about children’s books for early elementary ages about musings on asking for a sex change, daydreams of going trans, acceptance of a trans child by others in class and so on. Normalizing deviance so it will be easier to mold young minds.

We thought it was bad when Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman first came out in 1989.
Someone discussing the new editions on FR later said “No, she has one mommy and her mommy has a girl friend in a plaid flannel shirt.”


10 posted on 10/03/2025 7:05:49 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
You are right to draw a distinction between declining to expose children to pornography, or near pornography, and a library declining to offer a book containing contentious ideas.

The latter is on a step along the path toward criminalizing hate speech. Someone has to protect children of tender years who lack discernment but paternalism toward adults is censorship.


11 posted on 10/03/2025 7:10:25 PM PDT by nathanbedford (Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Not purchased with tax payer money. The books are, unfortunately, still in print.


12 posted on 10/03/2025 7:16:40 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wacko lefty group - wish we could deport them too.


13 posted on 10/03/2025 7:20:37 PM PDT by Wayne07
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The horrors of not allowing vile deviants to display their deviancy to children. How terrible. 😡


14 posted on 10/03/2025 7:22:17 PM PDT by vpintheak (The left is violence.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Books with outright pornography are being shown to little children. THOSE are the books being banned. They can try all they like to compare it to racial book banning but America has had enough and isn’t buying their crap any longer.


15 posted on 10/03/2025 7:27:56 PM PDT by servo1969
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most things that offend the Left concern mitigating its predatory behavior — it should be grateful the consequences amount to non-violent censorship


16 posted on 10/03/2025 7:51:43 PM PDT by Gene Eric
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“A Queer History of the United States” can be bought on Amazon for under $25. Not banned.


17 posted on 10/03/2025 7:56:29 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (God save the United States!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Is there anyplace that is really banning “To Kill a Mockingbird”? Or was that just included in the list of banned books to make us think that classics are on the chopping block and distract us from the warped perverted books that are actually being banned?

Years ago, our local Borders books was having a book drive for local schools. I bought “To Kill a Mockingbird” to donate. Most of the other classics they recommended as donations were books I found so boring as a kid that I would never subject a child to them. (I’m looking at YOU, “Great Expectations”!)


18 posted on 10/03/2025 7:57:30 PM PDT by exDemMom (Dr. exDemMom, infectious disease and vaccines research specialist.)
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To: exDemMom

I wonder how many public schools have unedited copies of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn on their shelves?


19 posted on 10/03/2025 8:06:51 PM PDT by TigersEye (Terrorism has been institutionalized by the left. Ask no quarter. Give no quarter.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I’m old enough to remember when society was united on what reading materials were inappropriate for children.


20 posted on 10/03/2025 8:07:57 PM PDT by wjcsux (On 3/14/1883 Karl Marx gave humanity his best gift, he died. )
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