Are You Registered to Vote?: Book Censorship News, August 23, 2024

This week, a short and sweet call to action for book lovers and advocates of the rights of all to access materials, public education, and public libraries. Make sure you’re registered to vote.

Several states have been purging their voter rolls. Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State announced earlier this year that he wanted officials to remove all inactive voters from the rolls. Inactive here doesn’t mean that these individuals have never voted. It’s that they haven’t voted frequently enough—as much as it is important to vote in every single election and especially those midterm and special elections that have a tremendous impact on your local community, plenty of people still don’t. Per officials in Ohio, inactive means individuals have changed their mailing address and didn’t vote for four years (so one presidential cycle) or they have not changed their address but not voted in six years (so one presidential cycle and a midterm cycle).

Georgia, too, has been removing voters from the rolls. In some cases, those removals have not only been beyond the parameters of when removals happen but those removed have not been informed. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced this month that the state would make deregistration easier through a digital portal, which means that any person who has enough personal information about someone else can simply log on and remove them from the rolls.

Those aren’t the only states, though. In dozens of US states, voters can be removed from rolls simply for not voting frequently enough. This, of course, has an outsized impact on marginalized voters who are already at a deep disadvantage when it comes to voting, especially in states that have been fighting to make voting harder by demanding day-of, in-person attendance.

Check your voter registration status here. You need to do this sooner, rather than later. Once you have verified your registration status, take a screenshot and save it to your phone. No registered voters can be removed from rolls 90 or fewer days from the election. Use this screenshot if you are challenged at the polls.

Every state’s laws regarding voter registration and the timeframe within which to ensure you’re registered differ. Some of those deadlines are coming up soon. You can find the breakdowns by state here.

If you live or work with young people, they might be eligible to register or preregister to vote as well. Preregistration means that once a voter turns 18, they are automatically placed on the rolls. This resource is invaluable to understand where and how those 16, 17, or 18 can preregister depending upon the state where they live. Of note, Colorado has become a leader in how it is encouraging young people to prepare for their civic duty as voters. Bipartisan Senate Bill 210, passed this year, will allow those who turn 15 to preregister starting in 2025.

Libraries, schools, inclusivity, civil rights, and democracy are on the ballot this year. Make sure you’re prepared to show up. As we get closer to election day, you’ll find more information about how to make informed decisions on those sometimes confusing, low-information down-ballot options that are as vital as the presidency.

Book Censorship News: August 23, 2024

The Greenville Public Library (SC) just saw their committee that reviews books vote to remove all books related to trans people out of the YA section. It needs to pass the board’s approval, but this would include any/all books, written for teens, being pulled from the teen section and moved. Absolutely targeted discrimination.
This story of the ongoing harassment and targeting of staff and LGBTQ+ books at the Davie County Public Library (NC) is a reminder of what’s at stake. “Bumping” the director’s car on purpose, even!
In the UK, over half of school librarians have been asked to remove books from shelves. Half of those—so fully 25% of all school librarians in the UK—have removed them.
“A Mat-Su library advisory panel [AK] tasked with examining challenged books voted Monday to recommend that “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins be removed from borough public library shelves, even as the borough’s attorney told the panel that his office does not consider the book illegal.” As if you need proof that the legality of removing books were in question, the panel here doesn’t even care the attorney told them no.
Francis Howell Schools (MO) will be banning boatloads of books, including anything with “explicit descriptions of sexual conduct,” alcohol and drug use, repeated profanity, and “purposeful conduct that injures the body or property of another in a manner that would be a crime.”
Ozark-Dale Public Library (AL) reopened this week after being closed for a month to review books and decide whether or not they were inappropriate. Nothing was removed for that, though some books were weeded via normal process and others moved—whether they were relocated because they were miscataloged or out of fear they might be targeted is addressed, but again, always worth a pause here.
Here’s a story of how the library workers at the Ozark-Dale library completed their process of reviewing thousands of books when the library was closed.
So how involved is a single Baptist Pastor in the policies regarding what King George County School (VA) students can read and what books might be banned? Very.
Speaking of King George County Schools, “Perrotte said she did not agree with the compromise to lock the books away, but she understood it. She said parents should talk to children about human trafficking and other potentially dangerous topics rather than push for books on the subjects to be removed from libraries. ” Yep, they’re locking away books.
100s of books by and about feminism and LGBTQ+ people were tossed out at New College in Florida. Again, not normal weeding, and it’s especially clear that’s not what happened when you know it’s been a year since Florida’s governor completely took over the college.
13 more books have been banned in Cobb County Schools (GA). Here’s the full list.
Speaking of, the teacher in Cobb County Schools fired for reading an LGBTQ+ book in her class filed a lawsuit that has now been backed by the Department of Justice and 17 other states.
Remember the story about Elmbrook Public Schools (WI) and how the board members were debating removing two books from an AP Literature class that had been in curriculum for more than a decade? The books are being narrowly allowed to remain on shelves.
This is a really good move in the Chattahoochee Valley Library System (GA). The revision to their policy about who can challenge books in the system is now limited to those who are residents within the system, rather than anyone anywhere.
Tillamook School Board (OR) just banned How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent from its curriculum. This is an editorial about the decision and offers how local folks can help keep the board accountable and ensure more bans do not happen.
League City Public Library (TX) has been reviewing books that book banners deem offensive or inappropriate since February 2023 and a recent picture book was just deemed as needing to be moved in the children’s section and available only to adult library card holders. The final decision and vote on the book being moved has been postponed. More on the ongoing destabilization going on in League City Public here.
This story is paywalled, but the South Western School Board (PA) has narrowly voted in favor of keeping an elective English course that reads award-winning literature. The debate came because some of those books are—gasp—by people of color and queer people.
We do not solve book bans by trying to ban books. The attempt to ban the Bible at Boise Public Library (ID) because of the new book banning law was rejected. This is not the flex that people think it is–freedom to read includes the Bible.
This story is indicative of how much time the bigots spend online. There was a Facebook post for a Brown County, Wisconsin, Pride event and it mentioned the presence of a bookmobile. So guess what public library started to receive a response to that and had to assure patrons that no, they weren’t going to the Pride event. Sigh.
(Paywalled) A Des Moines, Iowa, area school district decided to pull five books off a to-buy list. Can we thank their new book ban law? I’d tell you but…paywall.
“Menomonee Falls (WI) parents have filed a discrimination complaint against the school district after more than 30 books were removed from the library including one for preschoolers depicting same-sex families.” Good.
A San Diego, California, county supervisor has created a policy proposal to protect books from being banned in county libraries. This is great.
The Katy Independent School District (TX) is considering banning all books about gender fluidity to continue their bigotry policies.
Lynchburg City Schools (VA) handed out copies of The Free Speech Handbook during enrollment day to elementary students. Those are now being recalled by the district for being “inappropriate.” Sigh.
“As an AP US Government teacher, under that reading of the regulation, I would need to get my principal’s OK before I used an excerpt from ‘The Federalist Papers’ or from a recently released opinion of the US Supreme Court,” Kelly said. “That is, frankly, a waste of my time as a teacher.” Welcome to the new South Carolina school book laws.
Nine books challenged in Alachua County Public Schools (FL) will be retained and kept on shelves.
Three books were challenged at Hales Corners Public Library (WI), This Book Is Gay, It’s Perfectly Normal, and Doing It Right. The books were retained this week. Story is paywalled.
One book was banned and one was reshelved in Troy City Schools (OH), but that’s not enough. All books students borrow from school libraries will be reported to their parents/guardians.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is trying to get the Bible banned in Hamilton County Public Schools (TN). You don’t respond to book bans by banning books. This is not helpful.
The Cheyenne County Public Schools (WY) passed a policy that requires all students to opt-in to using the library and now librarians are the ones who’ll be targeted if a parent thinks a book is inappropriate. Even when parents choose the level of opt-in for their students, there will only initially be a small pool of books for access. This is absolutely nuts.
“Crawford County has paid approximately $385,300 in legal fees for two lawsuits against the county and its library over attempts to censor certain books.” The Arkansas-based lawsuit over First Amendment violations in Crawford County is indeed expensive.
The public library in Branford, Connecticut, received a bomb threat this week.
“Considerable time during the meeting was occupied by Blessington’s argument that books in the young adult genre are not appropriate, as students in the schools are “adolescents” and not “adults,” while Warren and Dewees clarified that the “young adult” classification is from publishers and refers to books written for the adolescent age group and is not the district saying children in schools are actual adults.” This is Oxford Area Schools (PA) and these are the people who are making decisions about the books in school libraries and classrooms—they don’t even know what book classifications are or mean.
Conroe Independent School District (TX) banned 19 titles from schools earlier this summer and this week, one trustee asked if they could establish a new policy to allow parents/guardians to access those types of books for their students to use. The school superintendent is worried that such a new policy would possibly lead the teachers to teaching those texts. This is the world we’re in.
The North Shelby Library (AL) director has resigned after a year of battling complaints over a Pride display.
The Charleston County Republicans (SC) want the public library system to “restrict” books they deem “sexually explicit.” When an entire local political party is doing it, then you know this is about partisanship and not about actually protecting anyone or anything.
This story is paywalled, but it might be up to a vote in Monroe County Public Library (GA) as to whether or not they need to remove all of the LGBTQ+ books from the youth area. The headline quote is a reminder that the philosophies underpinning this “parental rights” movement are far from universal.