Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Deputy Assistant Secretary Matt Nosanchuk with Student Ambassadors in the Library’s Books for All campaign at the New York Public Library.
While it is not the role of the U.S. Department of Education (Department) to make decisions on curricula or a school’s book screening process, it is our responsibility—through the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR)—to ensure that schools protect the right of all students to have equal educational opportunities that are free from unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin (including shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics), sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), disability, or age. When students’ access to education is limited or denied because of discriminatory conduct based on one of these protected grounds, federal civil rights laws are implicated, and schools must respond.
This past spring, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and I traveled to the New York Public Library to meet with Student Ambassadors in the Library’s Books for All campaign. These students, who came from a range of schools throughout New York City, discussed their commitment to protecting the freedom to read and the important role that exposure to diverse books and authors has played in their own lives.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
