Thread by @PENamerica

"WHAT'S AT STAKE when we talk about book bans is student learning and well-being," writes PEN America's @jonfreadom in @USATODAY. "Semantic gymnastics about what is or isn’t a ban is an effort to deny and distract from the problem." #BannedBooks #Reading usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

"To avoid charges of #censorship, school administrators, government officials and groups like Moms for Liberty have taken to calling the results of their efforts 'quarantine' or 'curation' – anything but 'ban.'

This debate is not new." (2/x)

"Writing about book banning for The First Amendment Encyclopedia in 2009, Susan Webb explained, 'Opponents of publications sometimes use the tactic of restricting access rather than calling for the physical removal of books.'" (3/x)

"In this sense, it is not only the most blatant prohibitions on books that are of concern to those who believe in protecting the freedom to read, but also the full range of ways in which authorities may exert control over access to information," writes @jonfreadom. (4/8)

In Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) "Justice William Brennan... emphasized that school libraries were owed constitutional protection from efforts by school boards to impose political or ideological constraints on books available to young people." (5/x)

"And that was affirmed by a U.S. federal district court in a 2003 case, Counts v. Cedarville School District, which held that requiring parental permission for students to access #HarryPotter books in the school library was an infringement on their rights." (6/x) #StudentsRights

"We need not face something as absolute as an eight-year prohibition—as happened recently to three books by @rupikaur_... —to be alarmed about the growing efforts to vilify, mischaracterize and constrain access to books about #racism or with #LGBTQ content in other ways." (7/x)

"What happened with #TheHillWeClimb by @TheAmandaGorman is no small thing. A parent filed an objection (stating) the book 'is not educational and have indirectly hate messages,' [sic] and saying that she believed the function of the material was to 'indoctrinate' students." (8/x)

"Despite the absence of further substance, school leaders took this challenge seriously and decided to move the book from general availability for elementary school students to the middle school shelves." (9/x)

"While district officials later told parents that the book was still accessible to all students, they also clarified that to access the book, elementary students will have to ask a media specialist for permission to see it and prove that they read at a fifth grade level." (10/x)

"Gorman’s book was not shifted from one shelf to another only to better guide student readers... but rather to impose a new restriction on it.... it can hardly be argued that it was... separate from efforts to suppress books and censor teaching in #Florida and nationwide." (11/x)

"The distinction between guiding students to books and restricting students from books is instructive... Three other titles were... restricted... at the same time: The ABCs of Black History by @OhReallyRio, Love to Langston by @PoetTonyMedina & Cuban Kids by George Ancona" (12/x)

"The idea that students would need to demonstrate reading proficiency at a fifth grade level before accessing these books... is alarming. Not to mention the subsequent mismatch, given that middle school students are not likely to be interested in an A-to-Z picture book." (13/x)

"When school districts reduce or prohibit access to books in response to the bogus demands of a single individual, they put the needs and interests of all on a back burner." (14/x)

"When they determine that books representing historically marginalized identities are inappropriate, they send students and families a disturbing message about whose stories matter. When state legislators enable and support these actions, they are complicit." (15/x)

"The point is not whether one can get a book that has been prohibited in a school at the local library or purchase it on Amazon; it’s about whether someone’s ready access to ideas has been denied or diminished in a public institution and why." (16/x) #Censorship #BannedBooks

"Alarm over threats to #freespeech is, rightly, sounded not only at the most severe prohibitions, but also at infringements that might have a broader chilling effect.. As the court noted in Counts v. Cedarville, 'The loss of #FirstAmendment rights, even minimally, is injurious.'"

"In a democracy, liberty and free speech require robust protection in the face of cultural and political censors. Protecting students’ freedom to read must be no different," writes @jonfreadom. (18/x)

"In the face of a growing movement to censor public education, it’s essential that we sound the alarm over book banning in its most insidious forms, especially those propelled by hate and ignorance." (19/x) #BannedBooks #FreedomToRead

From #MomsForLiberty to school districts to @RonDeSantis, "it turns out nobody wants to be known as a book banner... (but) if people don’t want to be known as book banners, there’s a simple solution," writes @jonfreadom. "Stop trying to ban books." (20/20) usatoday.com/story/opinion/…