Steve Zalusky

A hearing held October 19 by the House Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee on graphic content in school libraries drew testimony from both witnesses concerned about the suppression of material and others troubled by the content they see in school libraries.

The ongoing debate over the freedom to read moved to the chambers of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing September 12 entitled “Book Bans: How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature.”

House Bill 1315, signed by the governor, regulates “pornographic media exposure” to K–12-aged children and “digital and online resources” provided by vendors to those children. The bill requires a vendor or provider of digital or online resources or databases to have safety policies and technology protection measures that prohibit and prevent a person from sending, receiving, viewing, or downloading content that officials consider “obscene.”

UPDATE: On Saturday, July 29, U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks temporarily blocked two sections of Act 372, citing concerns that they were too vague and could potentially violate the First and 14th amendments. The preliminary injunction prevented the two contested sections from taking effect on August 1, as scheduled; the court will continue to investigate their constitutionality. Brooks’s 49-page order opened with a quote from Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451: “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” 

After two days of hearings in Ada County, ID, on March 29 the Ada County Board of Commissioners decided against putting a question before local voters that could have potentially dissolved the Meridian Library District. The hearings, held on March 20 and March 22, were convened in response to petitions from a politically conservative local group, the Concerned Citizens of Meridian.

Censorship efforts in the 2020s have moved beyond concerned parents to include restrictive legislation, library board power plays, and defunding.

UPDATE: On March 31, a Federal District Court Judge in Texas handed down an injunction stopping the ongoing removal of books from the Llano County library system. The decision will immediately reinstate books that government officials have already removed from the system. The court found that library officials violated the First Amendment because they had targeted nationally acclaimed books based on their viewpoint and content. The Court’s order states: “The Court finds it substantially likely that the removals do not further any substantial government interest—much less any compelling one.”

Libraries in Missouri, particularly rural libraries, felt a major blow this week when the state House granted initial approval to slash the roughly $4.5 million in state aid to public libraries from its budget.

According to Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s website, the intent of his online form for reporting graphic sexual content in libraries, created in late November 2022, is to protect minors. But the form—which has been called a “tip line” by the news media—has fueled criticism that it promotes censorship, targets the LGBTQIA+ community, and could escalate threats against library workers.