BANNED IN THE USA

...Over the past nine months, the scope of such censorship has expanded rapidly. In response, PEN America has collated an Index of School Book Bans, offering a snapshot of the trend. The Index documents decisions to ban books in school libraries and classrooms in the United States from July 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.

• Index of School Book Bans

• Education Gag orders

• National Coalition Against Censorship

• American Library Association recommended guidelines for book review

• 1st Amendment protection of School Library books (Case Law)

Protected by law

On Decided June 25, 1982, the US Supreme Court ruled that School libraries are protected by the US Constitution's 1st Amendment. This has tremendous implications regarding Right Wing's attempts to censor our children's reading material.

• A School Board is limited by the 1st Amendment on what it can remove

• (A school board's) absolute discretion DOES NOT EXTEND beyond the compulsory environment of the classroom into the school library

• "removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." Violates the Constitution

• "School officials may not remove books from school libraries for the purpose of restricting access to the political ideas or social perspectives discussed in the books"

School boards are not allowed to ban books with the intent to silence political opinion!

Free Access to Banned Books