Some titles banned from the St. Francis High School library by the St. Francis school board’s right-wing scoring system. Photo courtesy of Ryan Fiereck.
When I asked the media specialist how she felt when banned books were pulled from the shelves of the St. Francis High School library, she told me, “Each book I have had to remove crushes me inside.”
Since December, St. Francis has had one of the worst school-based book bans in the United States, according to PEN America. It’s taking a toll. Educators are upset. Students are checking out fewer books. The pile of forbidden titles is growing.
That doesn’t sound like Minnesota to many people. Our governor likes to say we feed kids here, we don’t ban books. But as the president of the union of educators in St. Francis, I want everyone to know it can happen here. The only real safeguard against book bans is us, as voters and plaintiffs, standing up for the freedom to read.
My school district is taking books off the shelves for all the familiar prejudices, but the policy is unique because there is no longer any local review or way to appeal. Nearly three months ago, the school board delegated all that to an anonymous website in Florida called booklooks.org.
Booklooks.org has been linked to Moms for Liberty, the anti-government group running a national disinformation campaign to spread distrust of public schools as a prelude to private school vouchers. The site uses anonymous reviewers and secret criteria to evaluate the “appropriateness” of books for young adults from a harmless zero to five.
Books with LGBTQ+ and Black characters, or that have “controversial religious commentary,” tend to get worse ratings. For books the group really doesn’t like, it quotes passages out of context, counts swear words and offers a .pdf summary.
The clear bias and murky process matter because in December, the St. Francis school board ignored its attorney, rejected a plan for a review committee of local volunteers and embraced booklooks.org. Now any books with a rating of three or higher are removed after anyone files a formal request. No discussion allowed.
Let’s be clear. That is a ban.
“Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez won multiple literary prizes but didn’t impress booklooks.org. It’s gone.
So is “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews. The shelves are empty where “Push,” “Tricks,” and “Lucky” stood.
More than 40 well-used copies of “The Kite Runner” languish on a cart with warning signs that say “… cannot be checked out!”
“The Bluest Eye” and “The Perks of Being Wallflower” are out.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood imagines America as a puritanical theocracy. Booklooks.org labeled it a four of five. Students should have checked it out when they had the chance because it is no longer part of our high school library.
It may not stop there.
According to the district policy, any formal challenges will result in the automatic removal of the Holocaust novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel because of its religious commentary and references to hate.
“Native Son” won’t last.
Even the classic World War II novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut is on borrowed time. Booklooks.org points to explicit violence, swearing and “inflammatory religious commentary” and gives it a four. And so it goes.
This is viewpoint discrimination and a violation of state law and the First Amendment, but there’s no enforcement. The state of Minnesota hasn’t reacted. After the November elections, the U.S. Department of Education went from filing lawsuits to stop book bans in schools to calling them a “hoax.”
The fact that booklooks.org has announced that it would stop operating at the end of March doesn’t change our district’s policy. And, a similar site, ratebooks.org out of Utah, has already announced it take over the booklooks.org archive.
So, it’s up to us: parents, educators, and everyone else who thinks it is wrong for an anonymous website, or even a few loud organizers, to control what students can read in their school libraries. Lawsuits and school board elections are all we have left.
But what about books that really are inappropriate? There’s always a chance that an educator makes a mistake when buying a book, or the content of a book isn’t as advertised.
School districts should do what St. Francis almost did: Create a local committee of parents, educators and volunteers to read the books in question, discuss them and make recommendations to the elected school board, which should follow the laws. The process offers transparency and welcomes different viewpoints.
Yes, it’s more time consuming, but local control of schools also comes with local responsibility for policies. We can respond to the expectations of our community without limiting access. Minnesotans can’t expect to find solutions by following the agendas of national, anti-public-schools groups.
Personally, I agree with our media specialist when she wrote, “Each book that is removed is another voice that is being silenced. Our libraries should be filled with the voices of everyone.”
If you agree, you can get involved. You can call your school board (mine could use a ring.) You can run for office.
It’s time for Minnesotans to protect our students’ freedom to read the books they relate to so they become life-long readers, no matter their race or background, faith or ZIP code, LGBTQ+ or not.