Book Bans

The Pentagon has ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review all of their library books that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues by May 21, according to a memo issued to the force on Friday.

It is the broadest and most detailed directive so far on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign to rid the military of diversity and equity programs, policies and instructional materials. And it follows similar efforts to remove hundreds of books from the libraries at the military academies.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared likely to rule for parents in Maryland who objected on religious grounds to books made available in a school district's elementary schools that feature stories about gay and transgender characters.

Members of the 6-3 conservative majority, which often backs religious rights, seemed sympathetic during the lively 2½-hour oral argument toward the parents’ claims that the Montgomery County Board of Education violated their religious rights by failing to provide an opt-out for their children.

New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law Monday to prohibit public and school libraries from banning books in the state and to enshrine protections against civil and criminal charges for librarians who comply with the law.

New Jersey becomes the latest Democrat-led state to enact a ban on book bans, joining Illinois and Minnesota. Murphy signed the bill at Princeton’s public library, a short walk from Princeton University’s ivy-draped campus and cast the legislation in the context of Republican-leaning states that have prohibited certain books in recent years.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed a law Monday prohibiting book banning in state libraries and schools. 

The law says school boards and the governing boards of public libraries need to create standards for how books are removed from shelves and how complaints are addressed. 

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy signed a law on Monday to prohibit the banning of books in public and school libraries, diverging from the approach that Republican-led states have taken against LGBTQ+ or racially themed materials that conservative-minded parents find inappropriate for their children.

If you were looking for the book “Sister Outsider” a few years ago at a school in Tennessee, you might not have found it there. But thanks to California Sen. Laphonza Butler, parts of it now live in the Congressional Record.

“Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a Black woman, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself — a Black woman warrior poet doing work — who has come to ask you, are you doing yours?” Butler said on the Senate floor in February, quoting Audre Lorde.

As a queer and out youth, Shae Ross was alarmed when she heard that conservative groups were organizing in her community to ban books dealing with sexuality, gender and race. So she and her friends got organized themselves, and helped persuade their school board to make it much harder to remove books and other materials from their libraries and classrooms.

In a letter to the board of PEN America, a group of current and former employees this week threw their support behind a recent, high-profile protest against the literary free speech organization’s refusal to align with its parent organization PEN International and call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Claim: A school in Florida has "banned" the poem read by Amanda Gorman at President Joe Biden's inauguration.

Who said it: The Associated Press, Politico, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Axios, MSNBC, the Daily Mail, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, the Boston Globe, the New Republic, Sky News, People, Variety, Jezebel, and others.