Libraries and schools across the country are experiencing unprecedented levels of attempts to ban or remove books from their shelves. I Love Libraries will continue to raise awareness by highlighting attempts to censor library materials, as well as efforts by librarians, parents, students, and concerned citizens to push back against them. This update includes news from the U.S. House of Representatives and the states of Texas and Pennsylvania, as well as thoughts from author and scholar Ibram X. Kendi on the banning of his books.
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House committee advances national book ban bill
The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce has moved ahead with House Resolution 7661, a bill that would prohibit federal education funds from being used in public school classrooms and school libraries alleged to have “sexually oriented materials” in their collections, reports Publishers Weekly.
Named the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act by its supporters, HR 7661 would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which is the primary source for federal aid and is meant to improve academic outcomes for disadvantaged students, including those at Title 1 schools. Chairman Tim Walberg of Michigan wrote that the bill will “safeguard children from inappropriate content in the classroom.”
American Library Association (ALA) president Sam Helmick challenged the “sweeping attempt to stifle students’ education and steal funds from the nation’s schools.”
In a March 18 response to HR 7661’s advancement, Helmick wrote that “representatives from both sides of the aisle raised concerns about the vague, confusing, and overbroad language in the bill” and that “HR 7661 should not become the law of the land in a nation where people value civil rights and oppose government censorship.”
Texas school district bans 1,500 books, including memoirs by U.S. presidents
Earlier this month, a school district in the San Antonio suburb of New Braunfels pulled more than 1,500 titles from school library shelves, including memoirs by former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, and actor Matthew McConaughey along with classic works by William Shakespeare, citing “adult” content, reports San Antonio Current.
New Braunfels ISD has either removed, restricted, or “aged-up” more than 800 books from its middle schools, 600 from its high schools, and some 60 from its elementary schools since Texas’ Republican-backed book banning law, Senate Bill 13, took effect in September, according to public information requests submitted by the Texas Freedom to Read Project. Passed during the 2025 legislative session, SB 13 ordered all public school libraries to review books for “profane” or “indecent” content. It also mandates the immediate removal of books challenged by concerned parents while those materials are under review, it empowers school boards to oversee library materials.
In addition to the memoirs, classics including Miguel Cervantes’ “Don Quixote,” Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice,” and John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” were placed in district libraries’ “restricted section,” meaning the books are only available to students enrolled in AP Literature classes. At the same time, Shakespeare’s classics, including “Romeo and Juliet,” “Othello,” and “Hamlet,” were deemed too risqué for middle schoolers.
“[I]t’s embarrassing for our state to be telling my children and the rest of the rising generation of 5.5 million Texas public school students they can’t read classic books, or true biographies of our country’s athletes, actors, presidents in our schools,” Texas Freedom to Read Project co-founder Laney Hawes said in a statement.
School board in Pennsylvania bans books that offend ‘good taste or propriety’
Southern York (Penn.) County’s school board has approved a policy that bans library books and any other material that “offends good taste or propriety,” reports the York Daily Record.
The district’s new library policy states that vulgar language that “offends good taste or propriety” causes the material as a whole to “not offer serious literary, artistic, political or serious value for the intended audience.” The second half of the clause invokes the so-called Miller Test, which the U.S. Supreme Court created for determining when obscenity is acceptable in public contexts.
Books that meet the new policy’s definitions will not be stocked in Southern York’s school libraries, regardless of their artistic merit.
The new policy also requires that various sides of controversial issues are available for students to read, and any text that has been altered or is inconsistent with the author’s intent is not permitted. Parents will also be able to opt their children out of certain teaching materials by requesting that their children’s access to those materials be restricted. This can be done by emailing the librarian an opt-out form explaining what the parent doesn’t want their students to read the material.
Adopted unanimously by members of the all-conservative school board, the language of the policy is nearly identical to policies adopted by several other far-right school boards, including Pequea Valley in Lancaster County.
Ibram X. Kendi on book bans and far-right fearmongering
“I think I’ve had at least seven books that have been banned in the United States,” Ibram X Kendi tells the Guardian. It’s proof, he says, that his works on racism, which extend from deep, scholarly histories to a biography of Malcolm X for children, are getting through to the right people and annoying the right people.
In his 2016 book, “Stamped from the Beginning, A History of Racist Ideas in the U.S.,” Kendi argues that racist policies lead to racist ideas, not the other way round. His bestselling follow-up, 2019’s “How to Be an Antiracist”, introduces the proposition: There is no such thing as “not racist”; you are either racist or anti-racist. There is no in-between: inaction or neutrality about racist issues is effectively complicity.
According to PEN America, Kendi’s books, including “Antiracist Baby,” “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” and “How to Be an Antiracist,” have been banned at least 50 times by multiple school districts in the U.S.
Kendi tells the Guardian he’s not happy about that, but he’s not discouraged.
“I understood that the major reason why people were singling me out and demonizing me was because they did not want people reading my books,” he says. “And when the character assassinations did not work to the scale that they wanted them to, then they started banning my books, and the books of many others.”
Take action
Alarmed by the escalating attempts to censor books? Here are six steps you can take now to protect the freedom to read.
- Follow news and social media in your community and state to keep apprised of organizations working to censor library or school materials.
- Show up for library workers at school or library board meetings and speak as a library advocate and community stakeholder who supports a parent’s right to restrict reading materials for their own child but not for all
- Help provide a safety net for library professionals as they defend intellectual freedom in their communities by giving to the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund.
- Educate friends, neighbors, and family members about censorship and how it harms communities. Share information from Banned Books Week.
- Join the Unite Against Book Bans movement and visit our Fight Censorship page to learn what you can do to defend the freedom to read in your community
- Become a Supporter of the American Library Association and help ALA fight for libraries and everyone’s freedom to read.
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