The Texas legislature passed a law in its last session requiring booksellers to rate any books they sell to public schools for its sexual content. And to rate any book they have ever sold in the past to public schools or to teachers.
The law threatens the survival of some 300 independent bookstores across the state. “And by April of next year, every bookseller in the state is tasked with submitting to the Texas Education Agency a list of every book they’ve ever sold to a teacher, librarian or school that qualifies for a sexual rating and is in active use. The stores also are required to issue recalls for any sexually explicit books.”
Small bookstores, like Blue Willow in Houston, may be bankrupted if they are compelled to comply. Blue Willow has two full-time employees and 12 part-time employees. It sells books to 21 school districts. Sales to schools comprises about a fifth of the store’s business.
The law is set to take effect on September 1.
Blue Willow has joined a lawsuit to block the bill. The lawsuit was filed by Austin’s BookPeople, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. “The lawsuit argues booksellers will suffer financial damage if they lose school-related business. Koehler estimates that a fifth of Blue Willow’s business is with schools.”
The legislature doesn’t care about the financial impact on small bookstores like Blue Willow.
Let’s see if the courts do.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Texas —
It used to be the heat made ’em crazy.
Nowadays it’s the crazy makes ’em hot.
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haaaaaa
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Can the U S unsubscribe Texas?
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Unfriending it is increasingly sounding like a good idea.
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The right wing culture wars are littered with victims. Public schools have been taking it on the chin for at least two decades. Florida is losing a good deal of business including several conventions that canceled their events, and agriculture and construction are complaining about losing workers from DeSantis’ draconian laws. Conservative governors determined to censor and restrict must realize there are consequences to actions that will impact the state’s bottom line.
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I think of all the women who cannot make their own decisions about their pregnancies, for example.
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I suppose Gov Greg Abbott and Lt Gov Dan Patrick don’t read and don’t care if all the bookstores in Texas go bankrupt. If you read, you might get exposed to ideas they don’t like. I don’t know how they will censor the Internet.
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They should send in a piece of paper with the following:
F-you!
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Here is the text of the Texas Taliban Morality Police bill:
https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB00900F.pdf#navpanes=0
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This is what fascists do.
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It is.
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I’m gonna write Macmillan and Scott Foresman and make sure the K-6 music textbooks I’ve referred to for 20 years don’t have any dirty songs in them.
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You don’t know?
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I used to know…come to think of it, Macmillan and S-F probably don’t know any more!
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Because Texas kids learn about sex from books.
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Because Texas kids don’t watch port on their cell phones.
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