* New York Times…

Governor DeSantis supported state laws aimed, at least in part, at limiting access to some reading materials in public schools. Books targeted to be removed have dealt primarily with L.G.B.T.Q. and social justice themes, with some groups objecting to materials on gender and sexuality in books that schoolchildren could read.

Other states, including Georgia and Kentucky, have followed suit with laws that could make it easier to lodge complaints about specific books and influence library or education boards, according to EveryLibrary, a political action committee that advocates for increased public library funding and tracks proposed book regulation laws across the country.

* South Carolina …

PEN America responded today to the removal of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ acclaimed memoir Between the World and Me from an advanced placement course in South Carolina, calling it “an outrageous act of government censorship.”

As reported, earlier this spring students in the Chapin High School classroom reported a teacher for including Coates’ memoir and two related short videos in her argument essay unit. The unit, designed in preparation for the AP Language test, which is accepted for credit by many colleges, included questions such as: “Do you think racism is a pervasive problem in America? Why or why not?”

Several students wrote to the school board about the class, saying it made them feel “ashamed to be Caucasian” and “in shock that she would do something illegal like that…I am pretty sure a teacher talking about systemic racism is illegal in South Carolina.” South Carolina passed an educational gag order last year that banned “divisive concepts” related to race and sex.

In response, Jeremy C. Young, freedom to learn program director, released the following statement:

“This is an outrageous act of government censorship and a textbook example of how educational gag orders corrupt free inquiry in the classroom.”

* Florida…

Officials with Alachua County Public Schools say they are taking stock of what’s on school library bookshelves over the summer break.

Jackie Johnson, the Alachua County Schools public information officer, said the county is having ongoing meetings to ensure that content abides by state and district standards in preparation for the 2023-2024 school year. […]

While the school board says that it is committed to the education of their students, Gainesville residents, following the actions of the school board, remain weary about the future of censoring books in schools. […]

Brad McClenny’s job as the public relations and marketing manager of the library district is to ensure libraries abide by the American Library Association’s position on censorship of information addressing diversity education standards. […]

“We have had two challenges so far this year,” McClenny said. “A book is in the middle (of being challenged) and a movie was denied to be taken off of shelves. The book is called “Grandad’s Pride.”

* Wisconsin…

Community and board members of the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau school district discussed a committee’s ban of the book “Queer Ducks” from GET’s middle school library.

No decision was made tonight, and the book is back on middle school shelves.

The book: “Queer Ducks- The Natural World of Animal Sexuality” is a book about the diversity of sexual behavior in the animal world.

The book was pulled from shelves temporarily last week after an instructional resource committee vote.

The removal was canceled after concerns were raised about the vote being done illegally.

* Virginia…

At a heated meeting on Tuesday night, the Hanover County School Board voted 5-2 in favor of adopting a new policy over explicit books in school libraries.

The new policy will allow residents to file a challenge to remove books with sexually explicit material, rather than allowing educators to adequately assess the content of the libraries.

In addition, under the new policy, the school board can have sole discretion to remove books.

Following this decision, the school board exercised this new power and went on to remove 19 popular books from circulation, including “Looking for Alaska” and “Water for Elephants.”

* Indiana…

“Pornographer.”

That’s the insult Chad Heck remembers, hurled by the people behind him as he testified in the state legislature earlier this year.

Like other Indiana school librarians who spoke against legislation seeking to restrict school bookshelves this session, Heck tried to dispel the notion that he and his colleagues were peddlers of porn — and found himself part of the national culture wars that have pitted some parents who mistrust public education against school leaders and staff.

Ultimately, lawmakers passed a bill that forbids books deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors” on school library shelves, following hours of heated public comment. House Enrolled Act 1447 also requires school districts to establish procedures to publish their school library catalogs, and to set up a process for a parent or community member to request removal of obscene or harmful material.

Now, Heck and other librarians with the Indiana Library Federation (ILF) who fought against the legislation are learning to live with the law, but they are still trying to clarify misconceptions about it. They stress that the law is not an outright book ban. They also say many districts already post their catalogs online, and already have procedures for challenging books.

* Missouri…

New restrictions on Missouri libraries have led one Kansas City-area library system to ban LGBTQ Pride displays in its children’s and teens’ sections.

The Mid-Continent Public Library said the decision was made to comply with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s new rules, which forbid libraries from having displays of “age-inappropriate” materials in areas designated for teens and children. If libraries don’t comply, they could lose state funding.

The library will also require that all display signs come from its central office or from marketing program LibraryAware, instead of from individual branches. Adult books, including parenting books, are no longer allowed in children’s areas.

The new policies are outlined in the minutes of the library’s May 16 branch managers’ meeting.

In an email to KCUR, the library said it still has Pride displays in common areas and it strives to make its children’s displays “diverse and inclusive.”

* Iowa…

The Iowa Library Association is cautioning school librarians to wait for guidance from the state education department before removing books from school libraries to comply with state law.

The law, Senate File 496, signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds May 26, bars from school libraries books that depict or describe sexual acts. Schools are also required to have a policy that allows someone to request removal of any classroom materials.

The law also requires schools to put their library catalog online and allow parents to review certain instructional materials, a practice many schools already have in place. The Iowa City district, for example, has had an electronic catalog — that is accessible to the public — of all school library collections “for decades,” said Kristin Pedersen, Iowa City schools spokeswoman.

Without guidance from the state, librarians are left trying to interpret the law, which is not their role, said Michelle Kruse, director for the Iowa Library Association and past president of the Iowa Association of School Librarians.

“The beautiful thing about a library is that if you find a book that doesn’t speak to you — maybe it doesn’t align with a belief you or your family has — you can close it, return it and move on,” Kruse said. “Now, we have a law that’s going to limit that access.”

* Arkansas…

There are lawsuits attempting to block a new Arkansas law that bans certain books from the shelves in the children’s section. The Fayetteville Library is one of several plaintiffs involved in one of the lawsuits.

40/29’s Yuna Lee spoke to David Johnson, the Executive Director of the Library, on this week’s edition of On the Record.

“It’s a real challenge to our first amendment rights, to read what we read,” Johnson said. “If they’re going to have a governmental agency, whether it’s a quorum court or a city council or a mayor, to determine what we can and cannot read, what’s next?”

* Utah…

Republican lawmakers rallied with more than one hundred Bible-toting parents and children at Utah’s Capitol on Wednesday to protest a suburban school district’s decision to remove the Bible from middle and elementary school libraries in the wake of a GOP-backed “sensitive materials” law passed two years ago.

Concerned parents and children holding signs that read “The Bible is the original textbook” and “Remove porn, not the Bible,” said they were outraged after northern Utah’s Davis School District announced that a review committee concluded the Bible was too “violent or vulgar” for young children. The committee ruled that it did not qualify as obscene or pornographic under the sensitive materials law, but used its own discretion to remove it from libraries below the high school level. […]

State Rep. Ken Ivory, the sensitive materials law’s Republican sponsor, rebuffed the idea that his law paved the way for the Bible to be banned. Though he defended the review process after the sacred text’s removal, he said on Wednesday that the Davis School District had overstepped its role by removing the Bible from middle and elementary schools because of criteria not in state law.

He said criticism of the review process that led to the banning of the Bible didn’t relinquish the need for oversight from parents and administrators about materials in schools.