Its policy, pulled from Michigan law, states: "Media materials containing graphic and/or gratuitous violence, sexual content, expletives or hate speech, and without literary or educational merit, should not be included in our school media centers." Johnson, "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell, "Red, White and Royal Blue" by Casey McQuiston and "This Book is Gay" by Juno Dawson. The six books removed from circulation for review are "Push" by Sapphire, "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. On Wednesday, the district released updated guidelines for challenging books. Protesters held up homophobic and transphobic signs that read, "Keep your dirty books in the closet," "Homosexuality big sin" and "Keep your porno books to yourself."ĭearborn Public Schools temporarily removed from its school libraries six books, the majority of which are about queer characters, after a parent complained. PEN America published a report in September on banned books across the country that found that 41% of those books contain LGBTQ+ themes and 40% contain prominent characters of color.Īt a Dearborn school board meeting Monday night, hundreds of protesters shut down the meeting with cries of anger over certain LGBTQ books they said are too sexually explicit for children. Parents and community members are raising concerns to school boards about books based on gender, sexuality, race and other content they deem inappropriate, citing the emotional and social toll such topics have on their children.īut Friedman insisted the mobilization is "really out of proportion" to what actually happens when people read books. "In many places, the patterns really start to emerge when you look nationally, and you see very similar stories in different places, stories about school board meetings that grow intense, stories about lists of books being removed from shelves, stories about school board administrators removing books without much due process or consideration of policies, or consideration of students' rights to read," said Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, an organization that works to protect free expression and created a nationwide list of banned books. From metro Detroit to Texas, battles over books are on the rise and some experts say they are part of a coordinated attack, with the loud voices of a small minority driving America's most significant book-banning movement in decades.
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