'Parental rights' or 'book banning zealots'? RI bill opens up culture war over school libraries.
PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island lawmakers are once again embroiled in what Westerly librarian Bill Lancellotta described as a "culture war that pits First Amendment advocates against book banning zealots."
But others contend the battle is over "parental rights," and, more specifically, the kinds of books that school libraries make available to children.
Those warring – and passionately-held views – about the merits of this year's "Freedom to Read" legislation played out in a legislative hearing room on Wednesday night, with some opponents of the bill insisting Rhode Island's teachers and librarians are "pedophiles" and "groomers" intent on peddling pornography to school children.
"I have seen the literature ("Lawn Boy," "Gender Queer") that is put in our schools and libraries for children and teens to read. These books teach children and teens about sexual acts and ... immoral behavior," James Richardson wrote the Senate Education Committee.
"As someone who has a daughter, I find it abhorrent that [state legislators] would lobby to have pornographic content continue to be in schools and be able to be read in libraries," he wrote.
But the many parents, teachers, librarians and clergy who spoke in favor of the legislation on Wednesday night said it protects a vital freedom from "anti-Democratic" and "authoritarian" actions by people and groups intent on "controlling the narratives and perspectives to which young people are exposed."
One speaker after another cited the "troubling rise in efforts to ban books from schools and public libraries," particularly in states like Florida, Texas, and Idaho, with the efforts focused on books "that explore issues of race, gender, and identity."
The legislation requires school libraries, in particular, to have a clear policy for evaluating "right-to-remove requests," while shielding librarians from getting personally sued by a person or group unhappy with a decision, as famously happened in Westerly.
Sponsored in the Rhode Island House of Representatives by Rep. David Morales and in the Senate by Sen. Mark McKenney, the legislation [ S238] says, in part:
"The freedom to read is a human right, constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to the United States [and Rhode Island] Constitution ... Authors, creators, and publishers have a right to communicate their ideas to anyonewho is interested in receiving them. Students and library patrons of all ages have a correspondingright to encounter them without government interference."
The bill calls on the state's chief of library services to create a "model policy" that, among other things, recognizes that public libraries are "centers for voluntary inquiry ... [that] promote the free expression of and free access to ideas."
It would limit requests-to-remove books from school libraries to parents or guardians of children within that school, in the wake of a Washington Post analysis that found the majority of 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.
Significantly, the legislation would also create a right-to-sue for librarians, students, authors, booksellers and publishers whose are, in one way or another, damaged by censorship.
"It essentially upholds the notion that we've all long held that free libraries are critical to the enlightenment of the citizenry and to the advancement of Democracy," said the lead Senate sponsor, Sen. Mark McKenney.
But it also anticipates the state's chief librarian will work with the commissioner for elementary and secondary education to make sure "appropriate" policies are in place for school libraries, "with things such as age appropriateness considered," McKenney said.
Amy Rodrigues, the Washington County, Rhode Island chapter chair of Moms for Liberty, said the bill, as she reads it, protects "bad actors," usurps parental rights and allows for legal action by authors, booksellers, and publishers "against elected officials, who we the parents vote for, if they remove ... inappropriate materials."
"I took my three children to local libraries with the assumption that they were safe places for children to learn without the risk of having their developing brains harmed from seeing pervasively vulgar graphic content that they can't unsee," she said.
Westerly activist Robert Chiaradio went farther.
He called the bill "trash" that does "nothing more than adopting into law ... the agendas [that] many on the left, including those on this committee, seek which is [the] absolute legal right to racialize, radicalize, and sexualize Rhode Island's kids via age inappropriate books ... [and] shield librarians and school districts from any responsibility for the harm they do to these kids by making age inappropriate books available to them."
While singling out the only Republican on the committee for "probably for being the lone voice of reason on this," he said, "the rest of you are the usual cast of characters that we've dealt with before."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Bill to stop book banning in RI has both sides slinging insults
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