House members gave initial approval, saying it gives local families more control. Opponents worry the proposal makes it easier to ban books.
By Karen Brooks Harper
https://www.dallasnews.com/
AUSTIN — School boards could yank books off school library shelves if locals think they’re profane or indecent under legislation that won preliminary approval Monday in the Texas House.
In the hours before the tense evening debate on the Memorial Day holiday, dozens of adults and children sat on the floor and the stairs outside the House chamber doors with books open on their laps and signs that said “Free to read” in protest of the legislation they say is tantamount to censorship.
Librarians, who normally curate book collections, would need the school board’s approval before buying books under Senate Bill 13, by Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney. District officials could appoint local advisory councils to review books and make recommendations to the school board.
The groups could also recommend books that they believe should be removed from school libraries.
Parents will have more of a say in what materials their children see when they’re at school and not under direct parental supervision, said Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, who carried it through the Texas House.
“When we talk about community standards, parents are part of the community, so this is a way for us to engage parents and to have them involved,” said Buckley, who chairs the House Public Education Committee. “We’re closing the door to some of the filth that we have heard read before our committee from the last two sessions.”
Books would be evaluated based on whether they meet “community standards” for profanity and indecency in a particular district, according to the legislation.
Any parent or district resident could challenge a book, and students would not be able to access it until school trustees decide whether to keep it. Parents would get access to library catalogs and the ability to restrict which books their children can access under the bill’s provisions.
The legislation won preliminary passage Monday in the Texas House on an 87-57 party line vote after a three-hour floor fight, and it now goes back to the Senate to review changes. One of the main differences is that the Senate favors the local councils being mandatory and the House wants them optional.
In 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott called on local school boards to issue tougher standards to keep what he called “extremely inappropriate” books out of schools. In response, many districts established their own book review processes. The State Board of Education standardized guidelines for school library rules two years later.
Many of the books being challenged discuss the experiences of people of color and the LGBTQ community.
Texas banned nearly 540 books in 12 school districts in the 2023-24 school year, according to PEN America, a nonprofit focused on free expression. A recent report found 39% of the most commonly banned titles in the United States had LGBTQ characters and 44% had characters of color.
Opponents led by Democrats argued that reviews are impractical and cumbersome and will dramatically reduce the size of schools’ book collections.
The fact that groups of people from the community can make decisions on which books to pull from the shelves with no accountability for what they might be removing from children’s lives is censorship, said Rep. Mihaela Plesa, D-Dallas, who said she grew up listening to her Romanian family talking about book burnings in her home country.
Books are banned “not because they’re dangerous to children, but because they’re dangerous to power,” she said.
“This bill does not protect children. It protects adults from having hard conversations,” she said. “We do not protect liberty by silencing, we do not strengthen education by censoring, and we do not honor democracy by fearing the diversity of the human experience.”
More importantly, they said, the broad “community standards” definition means that controversial classic books like Catcher in the Rye — brimming with expletives — could be tossed out if they offend the sensibilities of a conservative community.
Districts already have a system in place to object to books in campus libraries, they note.
The new requirement would make it much more difficult for children to have access to books that more conservative parents may find controversial, such as those dealing with LGBTQ issues.
Buckley was quizzed on how he could be sure that “community standards” wouldn’t ensnare the classics because they feature profanity or references to prostitution or other vices. Lonesome Dove, a classic by Texas writer Larry McMurtry, could be subject to a ban because it depicts prostitution, one lawmaker said.
“I do have a concern that we’re putting into statute that books that contain profane content are not allowed to be part of a library collection,” said Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood. “I do think we’re creating a lot of ammunition for people to target books that most of us, using our common sense, know are perfectly fine.”
Buckley acknowledged that classic books could be subject to pushback, as well as other popular books, depending on what a local community’s standards are.
When asked whether the Bible or President Donald Trump’s book The Art of the Deal were among those that could be subject to the reviews, he said no because he was unaware of profanity or obscenity in them. The bill does not allow books to be removed or prevented from being purchased based on politics or differing ideas, Buckley noted.
Buckley said school boards and the public would still have the final say on whether a book should be added to or removed from a school library.
Karen Brooks Harper is a Mizzou alumna who has covered Texas politics in and out of Austin for nearly 30 years. She’s also covered the cartel wars along the TX-MX border, Congress in Mexico City, 3 presidential races, and 6 hurricanes. Raised on blues in the MS Delta, she lives in ATX with her son, her boxing gloves, and her guitar. In that order.
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