Texas: “‘Knee-Jerk Reactions’: San Antonio School Districts Yanking Books From Libraries Without Formal Reviews”

From The San Antonio Express News:

Forced to comply with a new state law barring sexually explicit content and targeted by pressure campaigns from right-wing and religious groups, local school districts have purged hundreds of books from library shelves, often without the formal reviews available under their own policies.

In the past year, more than 900 books exited North East Independent School District library shelves for failing to “meet selection criteria,” according to district records.

From historical fiction and classic literature to stories centered on LGBTQ and racial experiences, they share one similarity. All were removed by individual librarians without the committee review built into the district’s process for handling complaints.

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The removals might be accelerating under new library standards issued by the State Board of Education last year that require every public school system in Texas to adopt policies prohibiting “sexually explicit, pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable” material in their collections. The guidelines were created to help them comply with a new state law called House Bill 900.

A federal appeals court in April blocked a provision requiring publishers and vendors to rate books for sexual content before selling them to schools, but the law’s mandate of more conservative standards is now in effect — and some school systems are going even further, said Lucy Podmore, past chair of the Texas Association of School Libraries.

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