Far-right campaigns to ban books have forced public and school libraries to become battlefields of cultural repression, instead of peaceful oases of intellectual riches accessible to all. Nevertheless, resistance finds multiple paths to defend the freedom to read.
A recent PBS newscast highlighted nationwide campaigns to ban books from children’s and teen’s sections. However, millages for the Detroit Public Library and the library in Alpena, Michigan, were firmly supported by voters on Aug. 3, even though Detroit homeowners will face a property tax increase and Alpena was flooded by a campaign against the library. Also, in the primary election, 54% of residents in Dickinson County approved a millage to continue funding their local library, despite a campaign to defeat it.
CHERISH YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY
Detroit Public Library. Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0
A campaign in Alpena is trying to have the libraries remove sex-themed books from the children’s and teen’s shelf areas but the library has refused to do so. Backed by a Supreme Court ruling (Board of Education v. Pico, 1982), libraries would violate the First Amendment if they remove books based on individual or group objections to their content. In an escalation of Michigan’s book wars, the Alpena County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 to fire its all-volunteer public library board. Yard signs urge voters to “Vote NO on Library Grooming” and include an image of a man handing an “X-Rated” book to a young girl.
That battle was similar to a 2022 fight in Ottawa County’s Jamestown Township, which voted to defund the Patmos Public Library because of LGBTQ+ themed books available to teens. An operating millage had been voted down twice, and the library only managed to keep its doors open by collecting hundreds of thousands in donations, until voters approved the millage in Nov. 2023.
In March 2023, in Lapeer, the Republican County Prosecutor wanted to take action over the book Gender Queer: A Memoir, as it might “potentially solicit, accost, or entice children for an immoral purpose.”
BOOK BAN ADVOCATES SPREAD FEAR AND LIES
Efforts to control and suppress information in public libraries ooze falsehoods and disinformation and spread unfounded fear. The campaigns would be better if focused on the internet and social media, which provide a gigantic venue to “solicit, accost, and entice children for an immoral purpose…”
But the internet can also be a powerful weapon for resistance, as Max, age 16, told PBS:
“The first book that I read wasn’t the reason I realized I was trans… So now that it’s not being represented, it might be harder for people to realize or even just feel safe in their own identity, and that’s my concern.
“What makes me hopeful is the fact that a lot of other people my age, who are Gen Z, we have access to the internet, and know how much power that can hold. I think that we have the power to stop this if we all pitch in. And I think we can.”[*]
–Susan Van Gelder
[*] Following backlash in Max’s community, several conservative members of the public library board either quit or were not reappointed. In Nov. 2023, the board voted to rescind the policy that banned some books from the youth section of the library.