Category Archives: US book bans

Advocates react to Utah ban of 13 books in schools and libraries: ‘It’s a tragedy’

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Utah is first in the US to outlaw titles statewide they deem ‘indecent’ as free speech advocates worry about impact

Library associations, free speech groups and advocates are expressing outrage and concern after the state of Utah ordered 13 books to be removed from public school classrooms and libraries in accordance with a new state law that passed earlier this year.

“It’s a tragedy,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

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Book bans use ‘parental rights’ as cover to attack civil liberties, Democrat warns

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Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, who introduced Fight Banned Books Act, says bans are ‘baseless attack on our civil rights’

The growing number of book bans in the US are using a so-called parental rights movement as cover for a wide-ranging attack on civil rights in America, a Democratic congressman has warned.

Earlier this month, a new study by PEN America revealed that there had been at least 5,894 book bans in US public schools from July 2021 to June 2023, with more than 40% of them in Florida, birthplace of a rightwing parents group called Moms for Liberty.

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Iowa rights groups sue over law banning LGBTQ+ books and discussion in school

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Suit by several families and organizations seek to have law declared as violation of students’ and teachers’ free speech

Several families are suing to stop Iowa’s new law that bans books from school libraries, forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues and forces educators in some cases to out the gender identity of students to their parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Lambda announced the federal lawsuit on Tuesday, saying the law passed earlier this year by the Republican-led legislature and enacted this fall “seeks to silence LGBTQ+ students, erase any recognition of LGBTQ+ people from public schools, and bans books with sexual or LGBTQ+ content”.

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Missouri library will ban porn star book – after 20 people on waiting list read it

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St Charles city-county system to remove Bang Like a Porn Star: Sex Tips from the Pros after critics claim it is too sexually explicit

A Missouri library system will ban a book that critics are calling too sexually explicit – but they are allowing the 20 people on the book’s waiting list to read it first.

A committee with the St Charles city-county library system in eastern Missouri has moved to ban the book Bang Like A Porn Star: Sex Tips from the Pros, but will allow everyone on the book’s waiting list before 21 November to read it first, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

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