A woman who heads a nonprofit group fighting book bans said Thursday that banning books from school libraries threatens “the essence of education, the free exchange of ideas, critical thinking and empathy.”
Heather Stout said this during the annual meeting of the Friends of the Moscow Public Library at the 1912 Center in Moscow.
Stout, a featured speaker at Thursday’s conference, represents the north central Idaho chapter of Fight for the First. The nonprofit’s stated goal is to defend the First Amendment by fighting the banning of books in schools and public libraries.
Stout said the North Central Idaho Chapter was formed this spring in response to May’s library board election and the Idaho Legislature’s attempts to restrict access to library materials with bills such as House Bill 314. Stated.
Stout said many people who seek to limit books in school libraries complain about the presence of pornography, but those claims are false. She said it is illegal for booksellers to sell pornography to libraries.
“Porn is not the same thing as making people uncomfortable,” she says. “They’re different.”
Books about the LGBTQ community and people of color have also been the subject of book banning attempts, she said.
Stout said her high school library always had books that dealt with uncomfortable topics such as drug addiction, sexual abuse, gender and sexuality. It’s nothing new, she said.
“What’s new is that a small group of politicians and very vocal advocates are imposing personal reading permits on all students,” she says.
Stout said librarians don’t force children to read things they don’t want to read.
School libraries have policies that parents can follow if they want to limit their children’s access to books, she said. But Stout said parents should only be able to control what their children read, not what other children read.
“They have no right to raise our children or anyone else’s children,” she said.
Public libraries have policies that allow people to challenge their book selections. Stout said library staff often spend significant time and money addressing these issues.
Stout said Idaho Sen. Cindy Carlson, who sponsored this year’s bill banning schools and public libraries from distributing “harmful” material to minors, wants it to be challenged or banned. He said he emailed her a list of 97 books. That list included Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning authors, Stout said.
She urged participants at Thursday’s meeting to oppose the book ban by writing letters to their representatives, speaking at local school board and city council meetings, and testifying before the Idaho Legislature. He appealed.
Cody Barr, who is running for the Moscow Board of Education in November, has made removing pornography from Moscow high school libraries a central part of his platform.