{"id":346270,"date":"2022-04-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/?p=346270"},"modified":"2022-03-31T23:35:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T03:35:21","slug":"schools-across-the-u-s-are-banning-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/2022\/04\/01\/schools-across-the-u-s-are-banning-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools Across the U.S. are Banning Books"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” are questioned for their inappropriate content.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Particular books have been established as key aspects of English classes all across schools in the United States, but in recent years, activists have worked to ban these books by targeting local school boards. Some states have already taken action on these complaints. <\/span>The American Library Association (ALA) said in a preliminary report that it received an \u201cunprecedented\u201d 330 reports of book challenges. <\/span>In Oklahoma, a bill was introduced by the State Senate that would prohibit public school libraries from keeping books on hand that focused on sexual activity, sexual identity or gender identity. I<\/span>n Tennessee, the McMinn County Board of Education voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel \u201cMaus\u201d from an eighth-grade curriculum on the Holocaust because of curse words and nudity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most frequent targets are books about race, gender and sexuality, like George M. Johnson\u2019s \u201cAll the Boys Aren\u2019t,\u201d Jonathan Evison\u2019s \u201cLawn Boy,\u201d Maia Kobabe\u2019s \u201cGender Queer\u201d and Toni Morrison\u2019s \u201cThe Bluest Eye.\u201d \u201cAll Boys Aren\u2019t Blue\u201d has been targeted for removal in at least 14 states.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of this opposition stems from social media. Many parents have seen Google Docs or spreadsheets of contentious titles posted on Facebook by local chapters of organizations. These parents then go on to ask their school board questions about particular books. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” are among the texts listed by the advocacy group No Left Turn in Education as being \u201cused to propagate radical and racist views to students.” Those who want specific books banned argue that this is a matter of parental rights and choice and that all parents should be able to influence their children’s upbringing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf Mice and Men\u201d and \u201cTo Kill a Mockingbird\u201d are also being challenged for their contents. Parents\u2019 objections included arguments that \u201cthe novel marginalized characters of color, celebrated \u2018white saviorhood\u2019 and used racial slurs dozens of times without addressing their derogatory nature,\u201d according to The New York Times. In the Mukilteo School District in Washington State, the school board voted to remove \u201cTo Kill a Mockingbird.\u201d The book is no longer a requirement in these schools, but it has yet to be banned completely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt will certainly have a chilling effect,\u201d said Deborah Caldwell-stone, director of the American Library Association\u2019s office for intellectual freedom. She said that aggressively policing books for inappropriate content and banning titles could limit students\u2019 exposure to great literature, including towering canonical works. \u201cIf you focus on five passages, you\u2019ve got obscenity,\u201d Ms. Caldwell-Stone said. \u201cIf you broaden your view and read the work as a whole, you\u2019ve got Toni Morrison\u2019s \u2018Beloved.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Particular books have been established as key aspects of English classes all across schools in the United States, but in recent years, activists have worked to ban these books by targeting local school boards. Some states have already taken action on these complaints. The American Library Association (ALA) said inContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":346315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-kaci-mccray24paceacademy-org","post-346270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pacenews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/files\/2022\/02\/books.rbg_.jpg?fit=720%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TYqQ-1s50","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346270"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346900,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346270\/revisions\/346900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}