Banned Books

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Betteridge's Law.
 
I guess I'd believe in an open market concept for school libraries (public or private) myself. Include mainstream right wing opinions on things like homosexual orientation, trans, etc. Also include mainstream medical thinking, legal implications and regulations, and include the other side's point of view (left wing thinking.)

Now this will never happen because there's not enough right wing anti LGBT material to use for those school libraries and the pro LGBT books would dominate. This is why these activists are passing these laws. It's the same thing they did in Russia with the "non traditional propoganda to minors."

"It's the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire." - Ronald Regan, Moscow University 1988
 
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Should libraries be forced to carry anti-LGBT material? How about anti-black, antisemitic, etc? If such material's in a minority, well, there's your open market right there, I would've thought. PragerU can pay for their own time.
 
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UKMikey
Should libraries be forced to carry anti-LGBT material? How about anti-black, antisemitic, etc? If such material's in a minority, well, there's your open market right there, I would've thought. PragerU can pay for their own time.
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I know public libraries in my state are run by the county or the city in most cases. For me, they should have stuff that is a complete list of all things. Now private book sellers sell whatever they want. I know Mein kampf sells at Barnes and noble in my city, it sits on the shelf close by to the Starbucks shop. It is definitely my view, that at the least, if private sellers are carrying it, and it's controversial, the library should have it.
 
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I don't know much about banned books, but perhaps I could write one? I will call it: How to Buy Bubble-Gum in Western Australia.
 
Compelled speech isn't free speech, but intellectual freedom is a part of free expression and access to information and ideas is just as important as the right to disseminate. In the United States, libraries that receive public funding generally must carry materials and not discriminate based on viewpoint when content is protected, but available space is a legitimate concern that may provide an opportunity for "soft censorship" by way of declining supposed offending materials or removing supposed offending materials under the guise of content neutral decision-making. Public school libraries are subject to these constraints, but First Amendment rights of children aren't nearly as robustly protected. Island Trees Union School District v. Pico of 1982 is the most recent Supreme Court case and Justice Brennan authored a majority opinion (joined by Marshall, White and Blackmun, with Stevens concurring) holding that the district board could not restrict the availability of books because they disagreed with the material content.

None of these standards apply to private libraries or booksellers, mind.

On the subject of public actors engaging in viewpoint discrimination with regards to public libraries...

bookriot.com

Mayor Withholds Library Funding Until All LGBTQ Books are Removed

Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee is withholding $110,000 from the library system until all "homosexual materials" are removed.
bookriot.com bookriot.com
 
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Aw man, Fun Home is great. It's 100% the sort of thing young people should have access to read. It's both a great story as well as an excellent literary work, and a great demonstration that the graphic novel format is as serious as any other and isn't just dudes with their undies on the outside of their pants.
 
www.acluohio.org

ACLU of Ohio Sends Demand Letter to Buckeye Valley Board of Education for Violating Author’s First Amendment Rights Over Removal of Children’s Book, It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn!

The ACLU of Ohio sent a letter to the Buckeye Valley Board of Education on behalf of children’s book author Jason Tharp, who was denied the opportunity to read his book, It’s Okay to be a Unicorn!, to students at Buckeye Valley West Elementary.
www.acluohio.org www.acluohio.org
COLUMBUS — Today the ACLU of Ohio sent a letter to the Buckeye Valley Board of Education on behalf of children’s book author Jason Tharp, who was denied the opportunity to read his book, It’s Okay to be a Unicorn!, to students at Buckeye Valley West Elementary at a planned presentation, after school board officials deemed the content to be pro-LGBTQ+ in its viewpoint. Based on available information, the book has also been removed and/or banned from the library collection. These actions, apparently taken in haste in response to ill-informed complaints by a handful of parents and school board members, violate Mr. Tharp’s and Buckeye Valley West students’ First Amendment rights.

The ACLU of Ohio calls on Buckeye Valley Local Schools to:

  1. Reverse any bans or restrictions on Mr. Tharp’s book and replace any copies that were removed from the school library;
  2. Adopt and enforce a policy preventing discrimination on the basis of viewpoint in library book acquisition and retention, where the book contains no age-inappropriate content;
  3. Adopt and enforce a similar policy with regard to guest speakers.
“Buckeye Valley censored Mr. Tharp’s speech because a few school board members and parents opposed what they perceived to be a pro-LGBTQ+ viewpoint. That is an egregious violation of both his First Amendment rights, and the rights of the students who were there to hear him,” noted David Carey, Deputy Legal Director for the ACLU of Ohio. “Students of all ages have a right to a full learning experience that allows them to think for themselves. Their libraries must be free from arbitrary censorship based on the opinions of a few officials. This type of book ban is on the rise across the country, and we take this matter incredibly seriously.”

The book conveys an age-appropriate message of inclusion, empathy, and embracing differences. In It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn!, the brightly illustrated main character learns to embrace that a unicorn need not hide his horn merely because it sets him apart from the horses around him. Public records obtained by the ACLU of Ohio reveal that a school board member had the following complaint, “We are telling kids that ‘being gay is ok’? Elementary school? My second grader? And wear clothes to create a rainbow? What the devil? Are we out of our minds?” Another declared, “These types of things are exactly what we have been fighting against.”

“Mr. Tharp’s books convey values of kindness, inclusion, empathy and self-empowerment. As should be obvious, nothing in the book contains any age-inappropriate content, and there is no legitimate basis for removing it,” concluded Carey.

The ACLU of Ohio will pursue appropriate legal action if the school fails to adequately remedy this issue.
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State actors--which necessarily includes public school board members--censoring speech based on viewpoint rather than substance, as the school board has explicitly done in this instance, is a big no-no in First Amendment jurisprudence.
www.mtsu.edu

Viewpoint Discrimination

Viewpoint discrimination occurs when the government singles out a particular opinion or perspective on that subject matter for treatment unlike that given to other viewpoints.
www.mtsu.edu www.mtsu.edu
 
What a timeline we live on where a book about being a unicorn is banned.

I'm not even sure it's about being trans or whatever BS the B***eye (I refuse to write THAT word) Valley School Board is claiming. In reading some excerpts of it online, it seems like it's more about just being yourself and I'm sure that's all kids will see with it. There have been hundreds of cartoons that tackle the same thing. I can't remember what cartoon it was, but I can vividly hear in my head the song "be yourself" (Cocomelon maybe?).
 
Joey D
What a timeline we live on where a book about being a unicorn is banned.

I'm not even sure it's about being trans or whatever BS the B***eye (I refuse to write THAT word) Valley School Board is claiming. In reading some excerpts of it online, it seems like it's more about just being yourself and I'm sure that's all kids will see with it. There have been hundreds of cartoons that tackle the same thing. I can't remember what cartoon it was, but I can vividly hear in my head the song "be yourself" (Cocomelon maybe?).
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Being yourself is a bad message. It's in direct opposition to indoctrination. You have to be what they want you to be, and **** sure that isn't a ****ing unicorn.
 
TexRex
Being yourself is a bad message. It's in direct opposition to indoctrination. You have to be what they want you to be, and **** sure that isn't a ****ing unicorn.
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Some kid in Ohio after seeing this...

Nono No GIF by Sofia International Film Festival
 
TexRex
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Minor profanity warning for the article proper. It's been subjected to the GTP profanity filter below. Maybe give the article a click anyway--TechDirt is one of the good ones--and you'll have access to linked sources as well.
www.techdirt.com

Virginia Politicians Are Suing Books They Don’t Like

Civil asset forfeiture has shown us the government has a weird way of instigating lawsuits. In rem forfeiture cases allow government agencies to file suits against objects, rather than the people t…
www.techdirt.com www.techdirt.com
Civil asset forfeiture has shown us the government has a weird way of instigating lawsuits. In rem forfeiture cases allow government agencies to file suits against objects, rather than the people they’ve been seized from. This leads to some very amusing case names (even if the underlying process verges on legalized theft), like South Dakota v. 15 Impounded Cats and, um… UNITED STATES of America v. AN ARTICLE of hazardous substance CONSISTING OF 50,000 cardboard BOXES more or less, each containing one pair OF CLACKER BALLS, labeled in part: (Box) “* * * Kbonger * * It’s Fun Test Your Skill It Bounces It Flips Count The Hits * * * Specialty Mfg. Co., Seattle, Wash. * *.

A state law in Virginia allows residents to sue things rather than people. That’s what a couple of ridiculous politicians (Delegate Timothy Anderson and congressional candidate Tommy Altman) have done. Their legal action targets two books — “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Mass — in hopes of securing a ruling declaring the books “legally obscene,” thereby prohibiting them from being distributed by the state’s public schools (either by instructors in classes or via school libraries).

“Gender Queer” offends these Republican politicians for reasons that can probably be inferred from the title. “A Court of Mist and Fury” is a bit trickier. For whatever reason, the pair of pols believe depictions of physical and sexual abuse are de facto obscene. And, for whatever reason, the two scored an early win in court, with a preliminary ruling stating enough evidence of potential obscenity had been alleged that the case could move forward.

Now, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) has stepped in to ask the court to find the First Amendment far outweighs the overstated (and politically expedient) arguments of these two Virginia politicians.
In today’s brief, FIRE and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation argue that neither book comes close to constituting obscenity as defined for minors under longstanding state and federal precedent. The books “will not appeal to or have value to every audience,” we recognize, but the First Amendment only requires that the books have “value to an audience” — and both plainly do.
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The brief [PDF] points out the best arbiters of individual taste are (duh) individuals. Long-recognized rights give parents and readers the option to read what they want. A broadly interpreted obscenity statute — especially when attached to a bizarre law that allows people to sue books — allows the government to decide what people should be allowed to read. That decision isn’t the government’s to make.
Some readers will choose not to purchase or read the books at issue in this case. Some retailers and some librarians will decline to place them on the shelves. Our Constitution reserves these choices for individuals and forbids them from the state. In our pluralist democracy, the First Amendment prescribes a remedy for audiences offended by protected speech: those who seek to avoid “bombardment of their sensibilities” may do so “simply by averting their eyes.” Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 21 (1971). Declaring books obscene because they include discussions or depictions of sex would reprise a discredited era of censorship repudiated by decades of Supreme Court precedent.
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If the court continues to entertain the ******** arguments of easily offended politicians, it’s going to aid and abet all sorts of censorship — not just in Virginia, but anywhere else opportunists see an opportunity to use someone else’s ill-gotten courtroom gains as leverage to foist their mindset on the people they’re supposed to be serving.
Without clarity from this Court, petitioners like the politicians here may prohibit parents from deciding what their children may read. Nor is this authority limited to books. Broad authority to prohibit or criminalize the availability of materials containing references to sexual content would enable the state to incarcerate a parent who allows a teenager to view an R-rated movie or even to access the internet.

Nor would the effects of such an order be limited to this Court’s territorial jurisdiction. Instead, it would embolden and invite further calls for censorship in school districts, libraries, and bookstores across the country—not only of these books, but of any now targeted by ambitious politicians nationwide. The resulting chill will force libraries, bookstores, and publishers unable to bear the cost of litigation to choose the cheapest option: censorship. But state-enforced silence has a cost, too, and it will be borne by groups without the political power to defend speech of interest to their communities—those who most need the First Amendment and courts that will adhere to its narrow limitations.
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Chilling effects can’t easily be contained. Slopes become slippery at a moment’s notice. What somehow worked in Virginia will become model legislation for would-be censors around the nation. The way to head this off is to shut down hyper-local efforts like this one with strong affirmations of constitutional rights. Hopefully, the court will come down on the right side of history when it dives deeper into the issues.
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TexRex
Minor profanity warning for the article proper. It's been subjected to the GTP profanity filter below. Maybe give the article a click anyway--TechDirt is one of the good ones--and you'll have access to linked sources as well.
www.techdirt.com

Virginia Politicians Are Suing Books They Don’t Like

Civil asset forfeiture has shown us the government has a weird way of instigating lawsuits. In rem forfeiture cases allow government agencies to file suits against objects, rather than the people t…
www.techdirt.com www.techdirt.com
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I feel like I should sue Virginia Politicians for wasting their time. Not any specific politician, but all of them as they are classified as a "thing".
 
Now for something a bit lighter than right trash threatening to hold criminally liable those who make available materials that are constitutionally protected (this is a total non-starter, but then the threat itself--and the idea that it will coerce individuals to act to remove said materials out of fear--is the point):

 


[EDIT] apologies, this list is fake. See follow up post below.
 
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