(NEW YORK)— In response to two lawsuits filed today against the St. Francis Area School District, calling for an end to the Minnesota district’s illegal book bans, PEN America issued the following comment from Sy Symms Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director for U.S. Free Expression Progams.
“School library collections should be curated by professional librarians with the requisite training and expertise. Supplanting that, in favor of a so-called ratings system found on a bogus online website, does a disservice to St. Francis School District’s students and families. Predictably, this policy is a recipe for censorship, leading to the banning of books on subjective, ideological grounds. This damaging policy ought to be immediately rescinded.”
The lawsuits were filed by the ACLU of Minnesota and Education Minnesota.
The St. Francis School Board changed its library policy last year to remove librarians and teachers from the process of approving books, replacing this process with a website called Book Looks. The site was originally started by Moms for Liberty, which has an agenda of removing books they disagree with from school libraries.
PEN America, the writers and free expression organization, documented more than 10,000 instances of book bans nationwide during the 2023-2024 school year.
PEN America has documented the steep rise in book bans in schools since 2021. The censorship has been mobilized by a well-funded coordinated network of conservative groups. Together with state laws and policies that erase so-called “divisive” topics from classrooms, this “Ed Scare” has led to education censorship unseen since the 1950s-era Red Scare. On book bans— a total of 16,000 instances since 2021—these groups have created platforms, such as BookLooks or Laverna in the Library, giving adherents who want to ban books a tool to target topics PEN America has identified as disproportionately banned.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, STrimel@PEN.org, (201) 247-5057