January 27, 2025, 2:13pm
This Friday, the Trump administration moved to support the proliferation of book bans across the United States.
Late last week, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights not-so-quietly dropped 11 open complaints against school districts that have removed what they claim to be “age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene materials” from public schools and libraries.
In a defensive statement, the OCR also “rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws.”
In the same breath, the office declared it “will no longer employ a ‘book ban coordinator’ to investigate local school districts and parents working to protect students from obscene content.”
The new non-policy rests on just the kind of smoothbrain logic that a good book can help you unthink. According to the new OCR appointee/Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Craig Trainor, the “so-called” bans are a “hoax” to begin with—though naturally, states and parents retain the right to “direct” their children’s education. Which of course begs the question: why should a practice that isn’t happening require such an enthusiastic federal defense?
Meanwhile, evidence to the contrary abounds. In an angry response, PEN America also troubled Trainor’s “reasoning,” noting that since 2021 the org has “recorded nearly 16,000 instances of book bans nationwide.” And according to the American Library Association, more than a thousand unique titles were targeted last year.
The book ban coordinator post, designated under Biden, was created to investigate those bans. Which PEN claims increasingly elide “commonsense processes” and rest on “censorial legislation from states.”
Authors Against Book Bans also denounced the changes in an unequivocal press release, in which writers noted that this kind of jolly censorship has a highly disturbing historical precedent.
Yet, as with most of this week’s nightmares, this news doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. According to his Federal Society bio, Trainor is a former (and apparently ironic) civil rights attorney who has spent much of his career strongly advocating for “a return to colorblind jurisprudence and policy.” Which, yikes.
But meanwhile—and to speak of the nitty gritty—readers hoping to fight bans in their communities can find useful data, action items, and book stats at Unite Against Book Bans, a national initiative to fight censorship.
And if you’re a young person hoping to find a title, report a challenge, or connect with ban-resisting peers across the country, the Brooklyn Public Library has a number of resources.
Note that individuals age 13-21 can apply for a free BPL eCard to access the full eBook/audiobook collection, no matter where you live.
