How to Identify Credible Sources—A Skill More Crucial Than Ever (March 2025)
Ensuring that information being shared is coming from a valid and reliable source has always been crucial. But for many, this hasn’t been especially important for a variety of factors—it’s easy to believe what’s posted if the person posting is one you generally trust; some information being shared feels intuitive and thus is likely not wrong (or if it is wrong, it won’t cause actual harm); media literacy skills are generally not a cultural strong suit; and, frankly, not caring for any number of reasons.
But in an era where our information is continuing to be skewed by those with power, it is well beyond time to begin asking questions about the information you’re reading. We know that we can no longer rely on some of the basic media literacy skills once taught. Websites with a .gov address after them are no longer going to provide the breadth and depth of information they once did. With one executive order, any and all history related to trans people in America has been erased.
Literary Activism
News you can use plus tips and tools for the fight against censorship and other bookish activism!
Librarian Criminalization Bills Are Growing, But They’re Not New (March 2025)
Obscenity exemptions are in place not as an admittance of inappropriate material. They’re there to protect the freedoms of expression allowed in these public institutions. They’re there to ensure that materials provided are true and accurate — some people might not like that the library has books about sex, sexuality, and puberty, but they’re allowed to be there and available to people who would like to read them.
Librarian criminalization bills seek to remove these obscenity exemptions for library workers and open up the flood doors to accusations of library-supported and distributed obscene materials. Librarian criminalization bills want to make it open season on libraries, much like we’re seeing in Idaho, where any parent who doesn’t like something in their public library can simply sue the library.
At this point, we know for a fact obscenity is defined in whatever way best serves those who are itching to cry victim. This includes books by or about people of color and/or books by or about queer people. It also includes wide swaths of books about disability, about puberty, about gender and sexuality, and about any topic that could be shoved under the new administration’s definition of “DEI” — literally anything not about straight, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, wealthy, white Christian men. They eradicate any voices outside that narrow scope through book bans; they erase anyone helping to provide access to those materials by criminalizing them.
Lawsuit Filed Over LGBTQ+ Book Censorship in South Carolina’s Greenville County Public Libraries (March 2025)
This week, four minor library patrons and their parents filed a lawsuit against Greenville County for systematically targeting LGBTQ+ literature in the library. The plaintiffs are being supported in the case by the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as the ACLU of South Carolina.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, focuses on the county’s policies and how they have intentionally led to the removal or restriction of LGBTQ+ materials. By encouraging such censorship, the county is infringing on plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month & Book Banning (April 2024)
One thing that the far right gets correct in their complaints about bathroom and locker room use arguments is that the instances of sexual assault are indeed higher when transgender people use the bathroom they feel most appropriately aligns with their gender. The thing the far right gets wrong, though — and we know it’s purposeful mis- and dis- information here — is that it’s not the cisgender bathroom and locker room users who are being attacked. It’s the trans individuals, A quarter of those between ages 13 and 18 were assaulted when simply trying to do their business.
You’re Wrong About These Common Myths About Book Bans (March 2024)
Book bans make kids/teens hurry to read the books being banned
Book bans are driving kids away from libraries. Moreover, the severe restrictions placed on libraries and what they can acquire means that wish lists from students are not being fulfilled like they once were, either.
Recall that for many kids, the school library is the only place of book access available to them. No matter how many times book banners say they’re “only removing books from schools,” they’re doing the same things at public libraries. With book prices for YA titles reaching upwards of $25 a pop for hardcover and $16 for paperback, teens simply cannot afford to buy the books if they even have access to a local bookstore. No, most of them do not have credit cards to “just get them from Amazon,” either.
Indeed, as EdWeek reported, “Each new book challenged in a district reduced the probability that the district would buy a new book about LGBTQ characters by 4 percent.”
How The BookmarkED/OnShelf App, Created to Help Schools Ban Books, Fuels Them Instead (March 2024)
In December 2023, BookmarkED—an app designed to “help” educators, librarians, and parents navigate book bans in school libraries—rebranded. Now OnShelf, the app has been making its way into schools in Texas. Freedom of Information Requests obtained new information about how the app is getting into districts in Texas and how the app alerts users to so-called “banned books” in the district. The app is a student data privacy nightmare, and it undermines the professional capabilities of trained teacher librarians in educational institutions.
How Public Libraries Are Targeted Right Now—It’s Not “Just” Books (March 2024)
Book bans in public libraries continue to increase. Per numbers released by the American Library Association (ALA) this month, there was a 92% increase in requests to ban books in public libraries over the last year. These numbers are nowhere near accurate in terms of quantity and scope, as they only showcase reports acquired or received by the ALA, but they offer a solid perspective of what we know to be true. Public libraries are not immune to the book banning which has taken hold since 2021. Book banning is not limited to school libraries.
But something that needs to be addressed more plainly is that censorship in public libraries does and will continue to look different than in school libraries. Yes, people will and do complain about individual titles or lists of titles. The destruction of public institutions remains at the core of the agenda, but when it comes to public libraries, things look different because they are different institutions than public schools. Here are several ways we’re seeing public libraries being targeted.
They’re Dismantling Higher Education, Too (March 2024)
But as much as the rhetoric has been about “protecting the kids,” it is very much not about the kids at all. If it were, then DEI departments or programs at public universities — where students are near-universally no longer minors — would not need to be disbanded. Texas outlawed DEI programs at all public universities, as did several other states. In Florida, the dismantling of higher education has an incubator program at New College. Last year, the state’s governor implemented new leadership at the public liberal arts school, which included installing completely unqualified political agitators to the institution’s advisory board. Students and faculty reported on the chaos happening in the school to begin the 2023-24 academic year, and even more recently, the institution saw sanctions leveraged against it by the American Association of University Professors for standards violations. Only 12 other institutions have ever been given these sanctions over the last 30 years.
Book Banning County Commissioners Censor Honor for Girl Scout’s Banned Book Library (April 2024)
The Hanover County Supervisors has censored the honor they are giving to one of their young community members. Why? Because that student’s Girl Scout project is related to banned books — something that the local school board is actively engaged with and something that Commissioners themselves are currently engaged with at the public library.
The Next Generation United Daughters of the Confederacy (April 2023)
In 1894, a group of women banded together to honor their history and legacy. These women, all white, established themselves as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in Nashville and set to work venerating the history of the Confederacy. UDC established both a national chapter and chapters throughout member states in the south, their messaging coming from the top and disseminating down to the ground.
The UDC saw their primary mission as supporting and encouraging the erection of confederate monuments across the south. In doing so, they hoped to “tell of the glorious fight against the greatest odds a nation ever faced, that their hallowed memory should never die.” UDC members created an offshoot of their organization called the Children of the Confederacy, wherein young people were taught a version of the Civil War and Southern Heritage that never existed but, indeed, was a mythos of White Supremacy.
How Much Does a Book Challenge Cost? (March 2022)
One of the many reasons book challenges have grown in the last year is that it creates tremendous paperwork and time investment on the behalf of a school district. This, in turn, allows those who challenge to point to inadequacies in how schools are being run because they’ve invested so much time and money into having a book in the facility they believe should not have been there to begin with. It creates a compelling argument for how tax money is misspent, furthering the belief many of these censors have that they should have the right to receive vouchers (on taxpayer money) to send their children to whatever school they wish.
But have we looked at this from the opposite side yet? Just how much money do these challenges steal from schools, which are already underfunded?
Editor’s note: there’s an updated post from late 2024 looking at the financial strain of book bans on schools and libraries that makes this 2022 cost analysis look downright quaint.
Hero Syndrome in Book Banning Efforts (March 2022)
Parents have always had rights. School board meetings have always been open to the public. But because of how the pandemic forced parents to pay more attention where before they never had to, many found the connections with other like-minded adults gave them a way to rally together behind a cause. They’ve turned to local school boards to stand up for what they believe are just causes.
But these school board meetings have turned into something else, too: an opportunity to be a hero. The louder, the more outrageous, the more backed-by-others-in-blue-shirts/red-shirts/people-with-signs, the more attention those citizens receive. The more their names show up in right-wing social media. The more they’re made templates for how to demand rights and ensure “liberty” and “freedom” in eduction.
In Leander, Texas, a woman brandished a pink dildo — one she “borrowed” — to make a point about the content of books made available as optional reading to high schoolers. Everyone remembers the woman with the pink dildo. That someone could quickly search “book ban” and “pink dildo” and get her name gives her hero status.
What Do School Boards Do? (April 2022)
Good boards, in addition to working collaboratively among one another and with the school administration, also hear from the community in which they serve. Let it be emphasized that means the entire community — not just those who are able to show up to a board meeting or coordinate a rally at said board meeting to be loud. Good board members also know they represent a team and not themselves on that board, meaning that board members who go rogue and post board or school business outside official meetings are not only creating a disturbance, but they’re acting unethically.
School boards are not responsible for determining what each educator teaches in their individual classrooms. Many do have oversight on textbooks, but more often than not that’s due to the budget requirements of a significant textbook purchase (and it gives parents their opportunity to review the texts, offer their feedback, and see where their tax money is going — rights they’ve always had). As the Illinois Association of School Boards notes, the difference between a school board and administration is that a school board governs while administration manages. Governing means offering strategic direction; managing means using that direction to create and implement action.
You Don’t Solve Book Bans by Banning More Books (April 2022)
Demanding books be banned to combat book bans isn’t clever or funny. It’s not subversive. It’s harmful. It actively works against the cause of anti-censorship and First Amendment rights and sets forward momentum gained in the work another step backward. More, it gains the kind of media attention that the hard work doesn’t see and thus, cannot be enhanced or supported by. Pointing out hypocrisy has been done over and over — and it doesn’t work.
Fighting book bans with more book bans does not work and it should not work. Fighting book bans requires time, energy, and money, and it requires showing up to school boards, to library boards, and in your own community. It requires giving money to organizations that are on the ground doing the work, mobilizing people to speak up and defend the rights of all people to access materials they wish to. It is not about engaging hate with more hate. This mobilizes nobody and creates significant distraction.
Book Censorship News: April 24, 2026
- A bill in Tennessee would expand who is eligible to become a certified school librarian. This piece is really good at explaining why this is not a great idea, including a potent quote from a librarian in the school district where an administrator brought the idea to the legislature in the first place. In few other jobs do professionals need to constantly explain their worth and value.
- North Smithfield Public Library (RI) became the latest library victim of the right-wing hate X account. Why? They fly an LGBTQ+ flag.
- Lexington-Richland 5 schools (SC) are considering restricting the book Sunny Side Up. The parent bringing the complaint believes it’s inappropriate for five year olds and yes, it is not a book for five year olds. But when you run an elementary school library that meets the interests of five year olds through 10 and 11 year olds, not all books will be okay for all readers. The good news is that the book will remain on shelves as-is.
- How book bans in Alberta, Canada, affected libraries in Ontario, Canada.
- Officials and some hobbyless residents in Hernando County, Florida, are trying to ban the free book magazine BookPage from county public libraries. Yes, they’re at “cancel a free thing no one has to take.”
- “A year and a half ago, a New Richmond, Ohio, teacher sued her school district after she was suspended for having books with LGBTQ+ characters in her classroom library. Karen Cahall’s complaint was dismissed in U.S. District Court in October and she is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. But she’s taking the lessons learned from that experience to launch the Rainbow Classroom Advocacy Fund. The organization, which has applied for nonprofit status and selected a board, intends to uplift LGBTQ+ inclusion in education by directly supporting students, families and teachers.” No one should be fired for being open and inviting to all, and this initiative is a great move following a horrible personal experience–and one being seen again and again and again.
- One of the Dallas Public Library (TX) branches at risk of closure due to budget issues is one with tremendous LGBTQ+ history.
- North Carolina’s House Majority Leader Brenden Jones is adamant about banning LGBTQ+ books across the state. Cool legacy, bro.
- Conservative propagandist group PragerU is launching its own school book fairs program. Reading the copy on this, it sounds a lot like the copy from SkyTree Book Fairs, which attempted to compete against Scholastic (which was “too woke”). I wonder if SkyTree has been absorbed.
- A librarian in Tyler, Texas, is filing suit against her former employer, claiming unlawful termination. We’ve seen a lot of successful settlements come when librarians have been fired for protecting the right to read and following their own ethical values via the Library Bill of rights. May she win.
- Russian police have raided a book publisher, accusing the publisher of pushing LGBTQ+ propaganda. What’s happening in Russia with LGBTQ+ books and creatives is the dream of banners here.
- Remember Mississippi educator Toby Price, who was fired for reading a butt book to young students? The court has denied the school’s motion for a new hearing, meaning his win in the case stands.
- A new member will be appointed to the Christian County Public Library board (MO). Recall how under siege this library has been over the last several years; this may amp up what’s been a more quiet revocation of library user rights in the last few months.
- Indiana schools can openly discriminate and ban topics related to “sexuality” and LGBTQ+ people in preschool through third grade. This stems from a lawsuit filed in 2023, and appeals court upheld the state’s side.
- Here’s what went down in the arguments before the 11th Circuit Court over a book banning law in Florida. This is the case where Penguin Random House sued the state, and then a state judge declared none of the books being removed by the state’s law met the definition of obscene. It’s the kind of case that SCOTUS would likely love to hear if it gets there–it’s far easier to play into partisan talking points than the Little v. Llano County case SCOTUS turned down.
- Rutherford County Library (TN), the one from which director Luanne James was fired for not removing books on the board’s demand, has now entirely removed the right to read from their policies.