FSC Joins Efforts to Counter Right-Wing Library Censorship

“Libraries offer students the opportunity to encounter books and other material that they might otherwise never see and the freedom to make their own choices about what to read,” the coalition letter states. “Denying young people this freedom to explore–often on the basis of a single controversial passage cited out of context–will limit not only what they can learn but who they can become.”

Publisher’s Weekly, a news outlet covering the book publishing industry, reports that the letter also comes among a “current surge in challenges…[that] appears to be a part of an organized political strategy alongside calls to ban the teach of so-called Critical Race Theory.”

John Chrastka, the executive director of the political action group EveryLibrary (a consigning group to the NCAC letter), told the Weekly that “what we’re seeing is the weaponization of parental control to advances a political agenda.”

“The First Amendment guarantees that no individual, group of individuals, legislator, community member, or even school board member can dictate what public school students are allowed to read based on their own personal beliefs or political viewpoint,” adds the letter.

FSC joined with other groups to oppose the right-wing efforts because of a rash of moral panics perpetrated by far-right advocates. One of the more notable cases involves Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sending a letter to a statewide school board association calling on the political bodies to remove books that he considers “obscene” and “pornographic.”

The letter sent to the Texas Association of School Boards did not specifically mention titles by name. Rather, Abbott’s letter issued a blanket warning about “pornography or other inappropriate content” found in books at libraries for middle and high school students. These books, too, also likely deal with LGBTQ and race issues.

Maia Kobabe’s award-winning graphic memoir “Gender Queer” is likely a target, given the inclusion of illustrations of sexual experiences.

Recent news reports also note that school districts in conservative communities have removed books like “Gender Queer” and hundreds of others from school libraries. Such a trend is a direct violation of the First Amendment, according to advocacy groups like FSC and NCAC.

As it relates to the NCAC coalition letter, book publishers and publishing trade groups also signed. This includes the ViacomCBS-owned Simon & Schuster and their imprints. “Gender Queer” was published by graphic novel and comic book publisher Oni Press, with Simon & Schuster maintaining a portion of the book’s distribution rights.

Simon & Schuster division Atria Publishing Group is also publishing the highly-anticipated memoir from award-winning adult performer Maitland Ward, entitled “Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood.”

These are some of the groups supporting the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Free Speech Coalition:

American Civil Liberties Union

American Library Association