Recognition of Banned Books Week, which ended Sept. 24, brings notice that Texas leads the nation in banning books, especially in schools.
As reported in the Austin American-Statesman, PEN America, a century-old organization that supports literary freedom and human rights, counted 2,532 instances of book banning nationwide, singling out 1,648 individual book titles by 1,261 authors. Those bans affected 138 school districts in 32 states, reducing the literary choices of nearly 4 million students.
In Texas, 801 books were banned in 22 districts. Almost half addressed LGBTQ themes or included LGBTQ characters. Other bans dealt with racial, religious and other societal issues.
Moreover, Gov. Greg Abbott recently asked Texas school districts to review the books in their libraries to see if any had pornographic content. State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, sent districts a list of 850 books he didn’t want on schools’ bookshelves. Most weren’t pornographic, but Krause said they “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”
Most of the books on the list addressed health issues, critical race theory and gender-related acceptance
Worse, the numbers are rising.
“There’s always been a school board here or there that has identified certain titles they feel shouldn’t have access to, but this is proliferating much beyond an isolated incident here and there,” said Tim Staley, executive director of the Austin Public Library Foundation. “This is becoming what seems to be a broader effort to restrict people’s freedoms to read.”
People who favor such restrictions — some call them censorship — say they want to protect our children. Most opponents, however, see them as punitive measures targeting people who might look or live differently than the book ban proponents.
Moreover, such protection is futile; removing books from library shelves isn’t going to remove the people who are reflected in those books, people those students will meet in their everyday lives, and probably already in their own schools.
Indeed, restricting access to information goes against the very purpose of education, which is to prepare students for adult life, and the various issues and problems they will face.
Depriving students of information, whether factual or fictional, about such people and issues robs them of the opportunity to gain information that can lead to greater understanding, and acceptance, and to less conflict and ostracism.
Proponents of book bans and other efforts to keep certain demographic groups apart have voiced concerns that they fear such people will indoctrinate others into cultures or lifestyles of which those proponents disapprove. They, however, would indoctrinate our students better by showing examples of tolerance and acceptance of people who might be different in some ways, but share many other qualities.
In the end, that’s what education is all about. It appears that some of our public officials seem to have a lot to learn.
