A Bill in Connecticut Would Fund Sanctuary Libraries: Book Censorship News, May 19, 2023

A couple of weeks back, I shared a roundup of pending legislation across several states and at the national level which would ensure the right to read. There is another bill worth highlighting during this legislative session that is making positive progress in Connecticut.

Senate Bill 2, called the Act Concerning the Mental, Physical, and Emotional Wellness of Children, is a wide-ranging one covering everything from children’s mental health coverage to public libraries. Most pertinent to the ongoing removal of books from public and school libraries, though, is the bill’s creation of sanctuary libraries across the state. The bill would allow every community within Connecticut to designate a public library as a sanctuary library, wherein books which have been banned, challenged, or censored will be readily available to anyone who would like to borrow them.

The bill would open up small grants for libraries which choose to take on the distinction as sanctuary libraries, coming in at about $1,200 annually. The bill has made its way through committees and has been slated for discussion on the Senate floor for this week. You can follow the progress here.

Senate Bill 2 signals to libraries across Connecticut that the legislators find access to information so vital that it belongs under the state’s child wellness bill. Connecticut’s Ferguson Public Library in Stamford was the second library in the country to declare itself a sanctuary library in January 2023, following the lead of Chicago Public Library last fall. Under the new bill, any city could designate one library a sanctuary. Those cities with more than one public library may meet criteria to become eligible as sanctuary libraries or may choose to remain “nonprinciple” libraries; the difference would be in ability to receive the grants earmarked for the purposes of sanctuary libraries.

The bill was a surprise to the Connecticut Library Association and to librarians across the state. It emerged following a meet-and-greet hosted by the Ferguson Library following its designation as a sanctuary library; Senator Cici Maher attended the event, and two weeks later, after hearing from constituents that book bans were among the biggest concerns of library workers, she returned to session and her committee and began drafting the proposal.

Tying state aid to such designations is similar to Illinois’s Right to Read legislation. Every library will be able to choose for themselves how to proceed, but there are benefits from the state to those who stand up for intellectual freedom and the First Amendment Rights of all within these public facilities.

Such bills will not end the onslaught of book bans. What they do, though, is offer opportunities for libraries to protect themselves one step at a time and ensure that the majority of people — who time and time again emphasize seeing book bans as inappropriate and unpopular — will have their libraries represent them. Moreover, these bills aid in rallying for more legislative action in other states and municipalities to protect the right to read.

• In Saline County, Arkansas, Republicans paid to put up a billboard claiming the public library is full of porn.
• Middle school students at Hempfield Area Public Schools (PA) staged a walkout over limiting access to books at school.
• “For nearly an hour of the more than three and half-hour school board meeting earlier this month, concerned citizens, most of which were with Moms For Liberty members, spoke on the appropriateness of certain books in Santa Rosa District Schools and questioned the process by which parents can make decisions about the reading material available to their children. Moms for Liberty claims that there at least 28 books found on the Santa Rosa District Schools website that had sexually explicit or culturally indoctrinating language in them.” This is Santa Rosa County, Florida.
• Three books have been pulled from shelves in Colorado Springs, Colorado’s Academy School District 20.
• Dorchester Schools (SC) will keep Stamped on shelves for students to access.
• Mansfield Independent School District (TX) just got a nice letter from the ACLU that their new anti-trans book policy is a danger to, well, trans students. This is a board that’s been influenced by ultra right-wingers and does not actually reflect the broader community. The school board is going forward with their anti-trans, anti-gender fluid policy anyway.
• A survey of book banning across Tennessee.
• “The Hambys argued the constitutional rights of parents and their religious liberties were being subverted by a ‘progressive woke ideology’ driven by Deidre Grzymala — director of the county Library System at the time — and her employees. They claimed this reported ideology was ‘normalizing and equating homosexual and transsexual lifestyles with heterosexual family units’ without parental consent or the ability to not participate.” Anyway, the Crawford County Public Library (AR) is making a committee who will determine a policy on where and how people can speak at board meetings.
• A Catholic church in Front Royal, Virginia, is working to get over 100 books pulled from the Samuels Public Library. Here’s the group’s cute little website.
• Laney Hawes continues to be the kind of anti-censorship advocate doing on-the-ground work that we need. The ongoing battle over books in Keller ISD (TX).
• Earlier this year, Ouachita Parish Library (LA) received complaints over two sex-themed books, including Let’s Talk About It (a favorite among the crisis actors). The library is waiting to hear from the attorney general (remember, the one who has a librarian snitch line) about what to do. In the interim, they’ve put the books behind the desk and only those over 18 can borrow them. Also not how libraries work.
• “Seven books will be returning to Beaufort County School District (BCSD) library shelves and one book, Identical by Ellen Hopkins, will be going back into the book review process due to a tie vote following the book review committee meeting on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at Okatie Elementary School.” The current status of the mass book review process happening at a South Carolina school district.
• A pastor and member of Turning Point USA (y’know, super unbiased) thinks that It’s Perfectly Normal needs to be removed from Asheville, North Carolina schools.
• There are lots of news outlets still thinking we need to legitimize Moms when they talk like this.
• “In a FOX23 exclusive, we obtained the entire controversial email State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent to lawmakers last month with explicit content shown in books that he says are in some Oklahoma public schools. On the front page of the email, it said he wanted to be completely transparent to leave people with zero doubt that his administration is doing all they can to protect children from ‘demented ideologies.’” Shocker that it’s a lot of made up stuff packaged as a crisis that doesn’t exist.
• Tricks will remain on shelves in Carroll Community School District (IA), though the vote was very close.
• Western Placer Unified School District (CA) will keep The Hate U Give as part of their 9th grade curriculum.
• Paywalled because the media is complicit, but the Columbia County Board of Commissioners (GA) heard complaints about where books are located in the public library this week.
• Boundary County Library (ID) is holding its first reconsideration meeting of four book titles this week on Thursday — we’ll likely have an update next week.