Alan J. Singer writes about Missouri’s bid to be the state with the most censorship in schools and libraries.
He writes:
The State of Missouri may have to change its nickname from “Show-Me-State” to “It’s against the law to show me!” According to a report from PEN America, in response to a new state law, this fall Missouri schools removed almost 300 books from library…
The State of Missouri may have to change its nickname from “Show-Me-State” to “It’s against the law to show me!”
According to a report from PEN America, in response to a new state law, this fall Missouri schools removed almost 300 books from library shelves. They include Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus about the Holocaust,graphic novels based on George Orwell’s 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Bible, and the Gettysburg Address, art history books with naked subjects, and comic books about Batman and X-Men.Leviticus in the Old Testament has a lot of rules about sex and apparently the New Testament starts with too many “begats.” The new law establishes criminal penalties for exposing students to “explicit sexual material.” More than half of the books are about or written by LGBTQ+ people or people of color.
PEN America calls the Missouri book banning a “grave threat to the freedom to read.” It is the latest in a wave of “mass removals of books, new legislative proposals targeting publishers, and the passage of restrictive school district policies.” Nearly 100 books were recently pulled from Beaufort, South Carolina school libraries, a proposed Texas law would require publishers to create a rating system for school library books, and a number of states and school districts are afraid of any reference to gender fluidity.
Senate Bill 775, which went into effect in August 2022 was supposed to address the rights of survivors of sexual assault. However, an amendment pasted into the bill classified “providing explicit sexual material to a student” as a class A misdemeanor and subjects “any person affiliated with a school in an official capacity” to arrest. In response, at least 11 school districts starting purging books from the school library.
A spokesperson for a district that banned fourteen books was quoted in the St. Louis Dispatch. “The unfortunate reality of Senate Bill 775 is that, now in effect, it includes criminal penalties for individual educators. We are not willing to risk those potential consequences and will err on the side of caution on behalf of the individuals who serve our students.”
PEN America has posted an online petition addressed toMissouri School Boards and Districts. You can add your name at this link. A number of prominent authors have signed the letter. They include Laurie Halse Anderson, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Roxane Gay, Lois Lowry, and Art Spiegelman.
Please open the link to read the PEN petition and add your name.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What does freedom mean in a RED State?
Freedom to NOT have abortions
Freedom to shoot anyone you think is a threat
Freedom to censure books one-or-more people don’t want anyone else to read
Freedom for theofascist, racist MAGA RINOs to decide how everyone is allowed to worship God
Freedom for millionaires and billiaonres to pay no taxes
Freedom for corporations and individual citizens to pollute the environment as much as they want
Freedom to infect others with a disease that might kill them
Freedom to have your right-to-vote easily restricted, making it difficult to impossible to vote if you are a minority or a Democrat
Any suggestions for other RED state freedoms I missed are welcome.
Wow. I shouldn’t be shocked but I am. Some of those titles shouldn’t even have been an issue.
MO Secretary of State Ashcroft is seeing comments to support his proposals for book bans. comments@sos.mo.gov
In Missouri or know anyone? Please forward and encourage sending comments. Doubtful the Secretary’s staff will read them – and they will cherry-pick the ones that support banning – but hopefully media will dig and get numbers of dissenting comments.
Secretary Ashcroft said he wants people to submit public comments on the proposed rule. The 30-day public comment period will open Nov. 15 and comments can be submitted by mail to the Office of the Missouri Secretary of State, PO Box 1767, Jefferson City, MO 65102 or by email to comments@sos.mo.gov
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is seeking comments – and is running for Governor.
And, yes, he is the son of former MO Governor John Ashcroft who ran for Senate and lost to Mel Carnahan (who tragically died in plane crash before the election ). He was then appointed AG under George W Bush
This is the John Ashcroft who put blue drapes in front of (or was it on?) Lady Justice in the Department of Justice Building to hide her nudity.
Being that Puritanical has to be its own punishment.
A backward, philistine moron.
And no, modern Palestinians are not descended from the ancient Philistines, so don’t start on that nonsense. Get your facts straight.
I love the saying, “Water will find its way.” Same with kids’ minds. They will find their way. Banning books in the school library might feel good to the fundamentalist Fascists of Missouri and elsewhere, to our own Talibanesque American morality police, but the more it happens, the less effective it will be. Might was well draw a sword on the sea. Spit (or other things) into the wind. Throw water on a grease fire. Try to teach something to Donald Trump.
Kids, do not under any circumstances read The Handmaid’s Tale or Maus!!! Don’t go onto Amazon and buy a cheap, second-hand copy, and after you’ve read it, don’t share it with your friends. They are so forbidden. LOL.
The proper reaction to these people is derision. Show up at the school board meeting and LAUGH at them.
Proper reaction?
Field of Dreams
Annie Kinsella: No, I think you had two ’50’s and moved right in to the ’70’s.
Beulah Gasnick: Well, your husband plowed under his corn and built a baseball field!… The weirdo!
Annie Kinsella: At least he is not a book burner, you Nazi cow!
Annie Kinsella:
Who’s for Eva Braun here? Who wants to burn books? Who wants to spit on the Constitution of the United States of America, anybody? Now who’s for the Bill of Rights? Who thinks that freedom is a pretty darn good thing? Who thinks that we have to stand up to the kind of censorship that they had under Stalin?
Tucker Carlson doesn’t foment hate without help. The person in charge of the entire Carlson brand and media empire is, reportedly (various media), a gay man who has been out for 10 yrs. or more.
The GOP is a party of self righteous bigots, many of whom live in glass houses. For example, the head of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, belongs to a religion that overtly discriminates against women- Latter Day Saints. McDaniel has put together two teams to expand the reach of the Party. The team is heavy with evangelicals and conservative Catholics who want theocracy expanded.
What confuses me, as a Latter Day Saint, is all the members who go right in with this Christian Nationalist garbage. LDS people should know enough of their own history to know that LDS people aren’t considered “Christian enough” to live in that kind of dystopian reality and would be targeted also. Shaking my head at Mike Lee, Andy Biggs, and all of those other idiots who are (supposedly) LDS and don’t get that
When a demographic segment wants to retain power and the members feel threatened about losing it, they take costly risks which jeopardize the things they claim to value.
Well put!!
Attorney General Jay Ashcroft is a graduate of the St. Louis University School of Law, a Jesuit research university. His father is currently a professor at an evangelical school associated with Pat Robertson. John Ashcroft is on the Board of Blackwater (currently named Academi). And, he’s a member of the Federalist Society, an organization steered to success by Leonard Leo.
American theocracy- White over Back, man over woman, conservative Christian over all others and straight over gay.
There is a simple solution to the book banning/burning nutjobs. But we can’t count on adminimals to do it because. . . well they are adminimals more worried about their position and $$$.
Make it district policy that a parent can give a list to the librarian of the books they do not want their own children to read. Librarians can check each time a student checks out a book. “Sorry Billie but your parents insist that you not read that book.”