"The Battle Over Books:" Nationwide trend of book censorship … – ABC 57 News
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Are political action committees turning public schools into political battlegrounds?
There's growing support from some local school board members with ties to these national committees to suspend, and in some cases, ban books with sexual or violent scenes and regulate what's taught in classrooms.
This is happening most notably in Berrien County, where a group called "We The Parents" is helping elect school board members that enforce what they call "traditional American values of faith, family, and freedom."
The group has been most successful in the Brandywine school district in Niles where last year, four candidates were elected to a seven-member board.
The growing movement to censor books in schools is a nationwide issue and is directly linked to political pressure. School districts are removing books from libraries at a record pace, according to Pen America. During the 2021-22 school year, 138 school districts in 32 states banned more than 2,500 books.
Jen Unger, a Brandywine Parent, is concerned about what the trend means for her young children.
"I want my children to be able to go into those libraries and look at any books that they want, Unger said."
Unger is a parent of three first-grade students at Merritt Elementary in Niles.
She's struggling with the idea that her kids won't be able to access books that she believes are important to their educational development in the future.
In February, Brandywine school board voted to suspend the addition of any sexually explicit or violent books from entering the middle and high school libraries. They also moved to create an 'Explicit Material Book Review Committee' to evaluate the books already in the school library.
Tiffany: "So, do you think the school board is acting in the best interest of the community?"
Jen: "I do not. I think they're acting in their best interest and not on what's going to be the best for the students and then the staff at the schools that they're supposed to be serving."
This is all part of a bigger picture issue, with school board races across the country becoming more political and more parents wanting a say in their children's education.
The 20-22 school board elections at Brandywine Community Schools brought four new faces to serve the district, all of whom are supported by We The Parents, a parental rights group financially backed by the 1776 Project, a conservative political action committee or PAC.
The committee formed back in 2021 to push back against the New York Times' 1619 Project, which provides free lesson plans that center U.S. history around slavery and its lasting impacts.
The super PAC received $3,00,000 in donations in 2022, according to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.
In Michigan alone, Transparency USA, a group tracking money in state politics, shows over $56,000 in contributions went to "We The Parents last year.
The group supported almost 30 school board candidates across 10 different schools in Berrien County but they were most successful in Brandywine.
"It seems that they have a more political agenda than focusing on the needs of the students of our district," Unger said about the recently elected We The Parents backed school board members.
On November 9th, 2022, after Board President Thomas Payne, Secretary Angela Seastrom, and Trustees Michelanne Mccombs and Elaine Mckee won their elections, The 1776 Project PAC tweeted, "We just flipped the Brandywine school board from liberal to conservative."
Unger voted for all four We The Parents backed school board members and it's something she says she now regrets.
"I just didn't do my part as a parent and as a taxpayer to make sure I knew what I was voting for," Unger said.
The We The Parents group touts a mission of recruiting, equipping and retaining a new generation of school board candidates that are grounded in the traditional American values of faith, family, and freedom.
At face value, Unger says it sounded like a good option but after taking a closer look at the group's push to "remove all forms of sexual, racial, political and gender indoctrination" from schools, she's realizing she disagrees with them.
"If you recognize the name, and you're not necessarily even doing some homework or have children in the district, I think you're just voting for by popular knowing their name, versus what they're running for," Unger said.
The big question is why are books that have been in school libraries for centuries getting challenged now?
Interview requests sent to We The Parents and the 1776 Project PAC went unanswered.
ABC57 also did not get a response for an interview request from Brandywine School Board President Thomas Payne, until showing up in person.
When requesting an interview with Payne at the March 27 board meeting he said, "Not tonight. But I will email you back and I'll my put phone number on there and then we can potentially set up a time. I'm really not doing interviews but let me think about it."
Payne did send an email the next day, but ABC57 was unable to set up an interview. A final email asking for at least a statement, went unanswered.
Former Brandywine School Board President Dennis Hinsey did agree to an interview request. He served on the school board for 16-years, until Payne was voted into the role last year.
I held every position from trustee to Secretary Treasurer, Vice President and most recently President up to December 31," Hinsey said.
Hinsey isn't surprised that the incumbents on the Brandywine school board were voted out in 2022.
With PACs pouring money into school board races, its fairly easy to flip control of who governs a school and for much less than it would cost to elect someone to the house or senate.
The 1776 Project PACs website shows theyve endorsed candidates all over the country, even impacting bigger school board races like in Miami-Dade County in Florida where over 300,000 students are enrolled.
Being a part of a political action committee is there's money funneled in all over the country to help advertise," Hinsey said. "And knowing that there were mailers going to homes, there was text messages, there was sponsored social media post, that all costs a lot of money, that the average person just trying to help his school or her school, they just won't do it. So, they had, you know, huge signs. It was basically name recognition.
Winning local school board races can impact education on a national scale as were seeing now with the push to censor books in schools with several states passing new laws.
In Indiana, lawmakers passed a bill in February to ban books harmful to minors in school libraries.
In Michigan, House Bill 4136 was also introduced in February. Called the library privacy act," it doesnt ban specific books, but calls for books with obscenities to be kept in age-restricted areas of a library.
Pen America, a left-leaning organization dedicated to promoting free speech and journalism, says 40% of book bans in the last year have been connected to political pressure or legislation designed to restrict and reshape teaching.
Hinsey thinks the push to ban books has become a talking point for politicians and it's not a real issue.
I went back and there was some push back last fall when I was President and we double checked, and I double checked, that in the last almost 20 years, there has never been a challenge from a parent for a challenge from anywhere about a book in the library [at Brandywine]," Hinsey said. We're not talking about kindergarteners, what do you consider sexually explicit? A National Geographic? You know, I mean, that's such a broad line. And we want kids, students to be able to maybe see something that they could be uncomfortable with, and ask, and because if we don't let them, they're going to find it. They're going to they're gonna learn about it one way or the other.
In the Brandywine school district, Hinsey explains that parents have always had the right to be involved in their childs education. He sees it as creating problems that dont exist.
The director of the American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, echoes that sentiment.
I can't think of a single public library for example that doesn't have a reconsideration policy in place that allows someone to raise a concern and talk about it with a librarian," Caldwell-Stone said.
The American Library Association is the oldest and largest non-partisan organization dedicated to library services in the world. Censorship challenges in school libraries are something Caldwell-Stone says can be detrimental to a childs educational success.
"When young people are allowed to read freely, they gain something from that and they're better citizens, they are better prepared to enter College, be effective parts of the military force, or join the workforce. And so, when we narrow their opportunity to learn, when we treat education as indoctrination rather than an opportunity to expand horizons, we can see the real impact on young lives," Caldwell-Stone said.
Caldwell-stone believes that book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the united states and, arguably, the most dangerous form too.
She says banning books can have major impacts on children, and society as a whole, by creating gaps in knowledge for young learners and undermining efforts to teach students to think for themselves.
We've seen quadrupling of the reports of censorship in school libraries in public libraries in the last year," Deborah Caldwell-Stone said. Ive done this work for 20 years and I've never seen numbers like this in the past and we're just really deeply concerned about the impact on young people's education, their ability to read widely about the world in general about their lives in particular and what it means for our democracy to have government agencies trying to tell individuals and tell families what they can and can't read.
According to the American Library Association, the number one most banned book in the last decade was "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie
"Captain Underpants" (series) by Dav Pilkey is actually the second most banned book in America.
"Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher ranks third, and "Looking For Alaska" by John Green is the fourth most banned book.
"Looking for Alaska" was recently challenged in the Coloma, Michigan school district. So far, no specific books have been banned locally, but the conversation over potential censorship in school libraries is ongoing.
You can read the full list of the most frequently challenged books here.
Go here to read the rest:
"The Battle Over Books:" Nationwide trend of book censorship ... - ABC 57 News
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- Jim Jordan probes potential YouTube censorship of Joe Rogan - New York Post - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Were Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin really shadow banned by Instagram and X? - Vox.com - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- FBI Spent a Year Preparing Platforms to Censor Biden Story, Withheld Info on Laptops Authenticity - National Review - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves - PEN America - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Marc Andreessen, Palmer Luckey Accuse YouTube Of 'Deliberate Censorship' As Trump-Rogan Episode Controversy Rages On: 'These Are Not Accidents' -... - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Singaporean docu-drama Small Hours of the Night about censorship banned in republic, withdrawn from screening at SGIFF - Yahoo News Malaysia - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Small Hours of the Night, Film About Censorship, Banned in Singapore and Pulled From Festival - imdb - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- YouTube accused of censoring Joe Rogans interview with Trump - Washington Times - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Director of Far-Right Doc Pulled From London Film Festival Says Fear Is Its Own Form of Censorship - Variety - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: Censoring hate speech - ND Newswire - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Media and the Gaza War: Navigating Censorship, Restrictions, and Biases - Harvard Kennedy School - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Florida health officials sued for censorship over abortion campaign ad - The Hill - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Election Meddling, Censorship, and More Bad News in 2024 Freedom on the Net Report - Tech Policy Press - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Abortion Rights Group Sues Florida Officials Over Alleged Censorship - Newsweek - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- NPR public editor really uncomfortable with censorship of Posts Hunter Biden laptop story but gives her own outlet a pass - New York Post - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- JD Vance Thinks Social Media Bans Are TyrannyExcept When They Benefit Him - The Bulwark - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Brave Books hosts sale on banned books highlighting the ongoing fight against censorship in Texas and across the Nation - The Prospector - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Frankfurt Kids Conference: Looking at Accessibility and Censorship Issues - Publishing Perspectives - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- Amid global decline in internet freedom, Pakistan classified as not free - asianews.network - October 21st, 2024 [October 21st, 2024]
- The cult of Covid censorship is finally being broken - The Telegraph - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Artistic freedom in our theatres is being lost to fear and self-censorship - The Guardian - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- 'The Wire' creator blasts Russian streamers for removing mentions that Omar is gay - Entertainment Weekly News - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- This librarian received death threats for fighting book bans. See her in Iowa City here. - The Gazette - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- JACK Partners On A Timely New Festival Tackling Censorship - BroadwayWorld - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Billboard Owner Tries to Censor Nancy Baker Cahills Body Politic Video Art - WEHO TIMES - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Breaking the Silence: The Impact of Banned Books - - The Badger - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Covid censorship was widespread and is still going on, leading scientist reveals - Collateral Global - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Nobody should tell us what to be reading: These Miami groups work to end book bans - Miami Herald - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Debate over online censorship heats up in Washington - KEPR 19 - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- American Library Association president Cindy Hohl on why book bans are hard to stop - NPR - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- On the Shouting Fire in a Crowded Theater Excuse for Federal Censorship - National Review - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Searching for truth: the line between fact-checking and censorship - WHYY - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- The left is using bogus COVID-19 research to censor their opponents - New York Post - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Should we be worried about censorship? - The Brown and White - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- America First Legal Sues USAID and the Departments of State and Commerce for Illegally Concealing Records on the U.S. Governments Involvement in... - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Debate over online censorship heats up in Washington - Baltimore Sun - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Movement Media Are Fighting for Palestinian Liberation and Against Censorship - Truthout - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Letter to the editor: No one is calling for full censorship - Sky-Hi News - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Have a pint and fight censorship at Upscale Pub Crawl - The Almanac Online - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- State Department investigated by watchdog over memo trying to discredit censorship reporting - Washington Examiner - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Voices of Resilience: Confronting Censorship in the Arts - STRAND Magazine - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- This librarian fought censorship in Texas. She just landed in Philly to revive school libraries - Union Democrat - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas. The Incendiary Power of Literature in an Era of Censorship - Literary Hub - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Our experts justify censorship of actual news with fake science to help Democrats - New York Post - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- "Two Censors Walk Into A Bar..." Inside The Slippery World Of Stand-Up Comedy In China - Worldcrunch - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Debate over online censorship heats up in Washington - WCHS - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Assumptions About Censorship in the Digital Domain Are Not Always What They Seem - S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- House expands censorship probe to YouTube block on FBI whistleblower interview with Catholic group - Judicial Watch - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Opinion: Vance is right. Harris and Walz are a threat to Americans' free speech. - USA TODAY - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- Fact check has become just another word for censorship - New York Post - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- City of Newberry accused of attempting to censor resident over 'defamatory remarks' - Gainesville Sun - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- Banned Books Week: Unlocking the Power of Forbidden Pages - THE WELLSVILLE SUN - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- Free to Read raises awareness of literature censorship - Carolina News and Reporter | - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- JD Vance avoids January 6th questions by pivoting to Facebook censorship - The Verge - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]
- Pressure, intimidation, and censorship: Israeli journalists have faced growing repression in the past year - Reporters sans frontires - October 4th, 2024 [October 4th, 2024]