Here’s the MLA-IFC’s latest letter to a school district near Springfield, MO. The struggle continues, and our position remains that books are for reading, not banning, not censoring. Libraries are where we access information, not wring our hands and bend to craven political mechanizations at the expense of our users.
June 17, 2022
Nixa School Board President
Linda Daugherty
301 South Main Street
Nixa, MO 65714
cc: Dr. Gearl Loden, Superintendent
Dear Ms. Daugherty and Dr. Loden,
As Missouri librarians and members of the Missouri Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee, we would like to express to you our concern over the number of challenges being made to books in your district. We understand that a nationally-connected special interest group representing a vocal minority in your district recently presented to you a list of 17 books for potential removal from your collections. It is also our understanding that the majority of those books were retained, and for this we would like to support your judgment. That said, we are concerned that other decisions made about removal or restriction could cause harm to the trust that youth have in the schools they attend, as well as youths’ ability to pursue inquiry and access materials. The books that were marked for removal, Fun Home, and All Boys Aren’t Blue, are both memoirs by prominent and celebrated Queer artists and authors. Homegoing, which it is our understanding is subject to restricted access, is a work by a Ghanian-American author that touches on complex themes about race, history, colonization and slavery. We trust that as educated people, you can see the common thread here: Celebrated authors from historically marginalized communities are being challenged for political purposes that have nothing to do with protecting youth . We ask you to consider why someone would want to restrict access to these perspectives, particularly as our social context becomes increasingly global and interconnected. We ask you to consider if restricting or removing these works truly serves youth in your district. We would further note that students in the district have already voiced their support for the challenged materials, which should be of equal or greater consequence to these considerations than the complaints of specific groups of parents.
As you know, challenges such as these are part of a national campaign to undermine civil rights and the social progress of LGBTQ and BIPOC populations, and to block access to the perspectives of historically marginalized people by young readers who may share those identities, or who seek to build greater understanding of experiences different from their own. Please find attached the MLA’s recent statement on intellectual freedom. In it, we outline the necessity of protecting the opportunities for access to diverse perspectives of which our youth avail themselves to be well-rounded citizens and empathetic participants in contemporary society. As with other challenges in the state, we ask you to consider the irreparable harm that undermining intellectual freedom causes to youth and their trust in public institutions that come between them and attempts to understand their world.
These challenges represent ill-founded and disingenuous attempts by anti-democratic organizations to curtail young people’s access to diverse perspectives and experiences. These incredibly damaging political actions are obfuscated by concerns about “protecting children”. Removing Fun Home and All Boys Aren’t Blue does not, certainly, protect LGBTQ+ youth, who need access to authentic representations of Queer experience to provide context for growing up in a predominantly “straight” society, just as cis/heterosexual children benefit from perspectives like Bechdel’s or Johnson’s that help them empathize with and understand the broader scope of human experience. Putting Homegoing behind the desk and requiring permission to access it does not help children interested in learning about African history or gaining access to authors writing that directly confronts the ills of slavery and racism on the world stage. In fact, these infringements on the intellectual freedom of youth in your schools cause only harm, and we would assert, do so as part of an agenda that is antithetical to the purpose of public education itself.
We request that you consider a moratorium on removing or restricting access to works from your collection, particularly doing so as a result of petitions by individuals or local groups who are known to be associated with national anti-intellectual-freedom action groups. Groups such as these are attempting to undermine the expertise of educators, the agency of students, and the good faith of parents across the state of Missouri and the nation. The goal of these groups has nothing to do with the well-being of parents and students in your district, and is instead part of an unfortunate “culture war” that continues to drag public institutions into protracted battles that waste public resources and undermine the general public good. We support those teachers, librarians, and employees working toward maintaining and promoting inclusive library collections, and those who cultivate spaces for free inquiry and curiosity to flourish in schools. We support parents working to promote access to materials in your district, and applaud their efforts to support their kids during this fraught time. We lament the amount of abuse, stress, and other negative consequences students and hardworking teachers and librarians suffer as these regrettable censorship campaigns continue. Please support your students by reconsidering your recent decisions to remove Fun Home and All Boys Aren’t Blue, and to restrict access to Homegoing. Please support intellectual freedom and put these items back on the shelf.
Signed,
Joe Kohlburn
MLA-Intellectual Freedom Committee 2022 Chair
Colleen Norman
MLA-Intellectual Freedom Committee 2023 Chair-elect
Tiffany Mautino
MLA-Intellectual Freedom Committee Past Chair (2021)
Casey Phillips
MLA-IFC Member/ Social Media and Communications
Ying Li
MLA-IFC Member
Kris Dyer
MLA-IFC Member/ Legislative Liaison
Kimberly Moeller
MLA-IFC-Board Liaison
Otter Bowman
Missouri Library Association President-Elect
Attachments:
MLA Statement on Recent Challenges- http://molib.org/mla-statement-on-intellectual-freedom/
Joe Kohlburn 