This week, PEN America’s @jeremycyoung joined @madintangibles on the @TrendingInEd podcast for a conversation about the unprecedented assaults on the New College of Florida and what we all can do about it.
“‘This fight matters even if you lose.’ That’s how @jeremycyoung of PEN America, a national organization that promotes freedom of speech, publication and thought, concluded an inspiring message to a recent gathering of professors at @NewCollegeofFL.”
PEN America: White House Announcement of Anti-Book Ban Coordinator Treats Crisis with Deserved Seriousness pen.org/press-release/…
(2/x) In response to President Biden’s announcement that he will appoint an anti-book ban coordinator, PEN America’s Washington Managing Director Nadine Farid Johnson issued the following statement: “The growing movement to ban books—especially books focused on the experiences...
".... of people of color and the LGBTQ+ community—represents a threat not just to the rights enshrined in the First Amendment, but to the well-being of students, who deserve to see themselves represented in works of literature and nonfiction...." (3/x)
"The parent... (said) she 'is not for eliminating or censoring any books' while saying that Gorman’s book and several others*... shouldn’t be available to students at all. We’d bring up George Orwell... but then people might want to ban his work as well." bangordailynews.com/2023/05/26/opi…
*The other books challenged along with The Hill We Climb by @TheAmandaGorman were:
“Countries in the News: Cuba” by Kieran Walsh
“Cuban Kids” by George Ancona
“Love to Langston” by @PoetTonyMedina
“The ABCs of Black History” by @OhReallyRio
ICYMI: An analysis by The Washington Post found that "a majority of book challenges can be attributed to a very small number of people—11 to be exact."
These repeat challengers are often assisted by conservative book banning groups like Moms for Liberty. bookriot.com/washington-pos…
PEN America's April 2023 #BannedInTheUSA report documented "an escalation of book bans and censorship in classrooms and school libraries across the United States," with book bans most prevalent in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina.
"The deepest fear that book banners, homophobes and misogynists share is the terrifying possibility that reading and thinking might lead to questioning, or even challenging, long-held biases!" Nancy Kohl, in a letter to the New York Times.
"I don’t understand why... the burden was placed on parents to opt in to allow their children to access restricted titles... Those parents raising objections should be the ones to opt out, if certain books make them uncomfortable." Merri Rosenberg, in a letter to the NY Times.
Reality: "DeSantis is vastly playing down the extent to which individual school districts & libraries... have removed books... Florida ranks 2nd, as the state with the most bans, according to PEN America." nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says reports of book banning in Florida are a "hoax" and that only "pornographic and inappropriate" materials have been removed from Florida classrooms.
In the 2021-22 school year PEN America documented 565 books banned in Florida schools. Some were banned permanently, others temporarily pending investigations. The result is the same: Students can’t access books. You can see how we define a book ban here. pen.org/book-bans-freq…
🧵A K-8 school in Miami-Dade County recently removed @TheAmandaGorman's The Hill We Climb from elementary school library shelves. They say it’s not been banned, but…
... When you restrict or diminish access to a book, that’s a ban.
Moving the book to middle school shelves means elementary students can’t or won’t get it.
Their access has diminished. (2/x)
The Hill We Climb was widely praised and read at a Presidential Inauguration.
It was moved to middle schools along with @OhReallyRio's The ABC’s of Black History.
This cannot be separated from the wider movement to restrict books by Black authors and about Black history. (3/x)