Free People Read Freely

 Looks cute.

It’s deadly serious. Take a look. 

How LGBTQ Voices are Being Erased in Classrooms, Leslie Rafei, ACLU

How LGBTQIA+ Book Bans Impact Kids and Teens, JoAnn Yao, WNDB

The Impact of Book Bans on LGBTQ Students, Sarah Zhang, Institute for Youth in Policy

When you vote in our upcoming local elections you can do something tangible to ensure that school environments are truly conducive to learning: safe, accepting, and fully prepared to meet student needs.

The responsibility of schools to support all students clearly includes LGBTQ+ students. In fulfilling that responsibility, school must have the freedom to choose materials that are appropriate to meet a variety of student needs. There’s nothing radical about this. 

People who support intellectual freedom in schools, especially in school libraries, are not “radicals.” 

I don’t know if I can make this any plainer: if you live in Howard County the ability of your local schools to fulfill their educational mission is under attack.

Targeting books for removal from school libraries (yes, that is book banning) comes most often at the expense of LGBTQ students. We are encouraged to believe that suppressing such educational materials is an affirmation of overall community values.

It’s not.

While public support for key LGBTQ rights has been steadily increasing - 79% of Americans support laws protecting LGBTQ individuals from discrimination and nearly 70% support same-sex marriage, as found in a 2022 survey - the corresponding growth in anti-LGBTQ bills reflects not general public opinion, but raised levels of lobbying from groups such as MFL, as introduced earlier.  - - Sarah Zhang, The Impact of Book Bans on LGBTQ Students

It is suggested that the mere presence of certain books in school libraries - - the simple availability of them - -  constitutes active harm to students. Of course there is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. In addition, these conversations rarely address the harm done when suppressing materials relevant to LGTBQ students.

Toni Moore, a high school librarian in Kentucky, said that if teens are struggling with their identity and place in the world, seeing a book about someone like them challenged or outright banned can be very harmful.

“It takes these kids and amplifies every bad feeling they’ve had about their self-worth and how they fit into society,” Moore said. “I think it has a very negative effect on them.”

Amie Jones is the UK-based founder of Kind Kids Book Club, and she said that book bans are also an insult to teens’ intelligence, as it assumes that they can’t make informed, conscientious decisions on their own about what books they want to read. Jones said that the book bans restrict empathy when it comes to how teens think about others, and attack their own views of themselves. - - JoAn Yao, How LGBTQIA+ Book Bans Impact Kids and Teens

Evidence from around the country shows us that the people who get excited about removing books from school libraries are rarely content to stop at that. They’re also taking away access to bathrooms, to sports participation, and the expression of student voice. This is a mindset which easily moves from targeting books with LGBTQIA characters to ones telling the truth about American History, the Civil Rights movement (and even the Holocaust) like an uncontrollable Roomba of school censorship.

Their words and actions stand in opposition to intellectual freedom and democratic principles. Imagine what must motivate people to paint libraries and librarians as figures of malevolence and abuse. 

This is a hunger to control* that cannot be appeased.

Yesterday Board of Education incumbent Jen Mallo posted a statement on this topic on social media. Here’s the essence of it. I’d recommend you read the whole thing if you have time. 

There are a number of qualifications for serving on the school board. This is certainly not the only thing that community members are considering right now. But it should be the most basic and essential qualification. If you cannot trust a candidate on this, then they will in no way be trustworthy on anything else.

Choose carefully. 

Village Green/Town² Comments

*I found the following sentence to be worthy of consideration. Yao’s piece is based on a book ban policy passed in the Central Bucks School District (CBSD), located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Does this sound familiar to you?

It may be important to note that these conservative groups gained prominence during the pandemic in fighting against COVID-19 restrictions; as general interest in the pandemic waned, these organizations shifted focus towards supporting policies such as the pride flag ban and now the book ban.