Parents in a Milwaukee suburb filed a discrimination complaint with their local school district claiming that removing a book from a traveling library of supplemental material for kindergarten students will have a negative impact on their child’s learning.
Other parents in the same suburb had requested that the book, “Love Makes a Family,” be removed from the traveling library. The school district’s curriculum and learning committee removed the book, which showed a diverse variety of family structures, in July.
And in Idaho, private schools and privately funded libraries sued state officials recently, challenging a controversial new law that allows community members to challenge library books they believe are harmful to children.
Those are just a few examples of the types of conflicting and complex challenges school and public librarians are facing as books become caught up in political battles, according to Tomas Lipinski, professor in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies. Lipinski, who is a librarian and a lawyer, has written several books on the topic of legal issues facing libraries. He holds regular seminars and webinars on the topic.
He is part of a panel discussion on the topic at the Banned Wagon workshop at the Milwaukee Public Library Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the downtown library. Lipinski will lead off the discussion at 12:30 p.m. with an analysis and insights on the major historical and contemporary book banning legal cases.
Controversies increasing
The pace of controversies has increased in the last 10 years, Lipinski said.
Nationwide, the American Library Association counted 1,269 challenges to library books and resources in 2023. The group said that was “the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago.”
“We’re seeing clusters of challenges where people are not just objecting to one item, but a whole series of items,” Lipinski said. Even when courts have ruled against some of the restrictions, “I think that some of the legislators and legislatures that are in more conservative areas are going to continue to try to enact restrictions, particularly as elections approach. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“It used to be that people became librarians because they loved books and it was a quiet career,” Lipinski said. Now librarians find themselves dealing with criticism and even threats of physical harm. That may discourage some from even entering the profession, he added.
While book bans are an issue, legislation – both proposed and passed – has impacted the way librarians do their jobs. In Wisconsin, for example, last fall legislators proposed a requirement that libraries inform parents of what books their children under 16 are accessing or checking out.
More legislation
That requirement isn’t really necessary because the custodial parent or guardian already has the right to request these records for their children under age 16 under an exception to the library privacy protection provisions of state law, Lipinski said.
“It would create a huge administrative burden, and probably systems would have to be slightly redesigned to generate that kind of content and push it out to all parents,” he added. If the bill passed, every library covered by the proposed statute would have to tell every parent what books their children were checking out or accessing, even if the parents don’t care, he added.
This legislation and other proposed legislation impacting public and school libraries all around the country fall into several main areas, Lipinski said.
One area is amending laws to take away librarian immunity from being sued for providing indecent content.
While federal laws tied to internet funding spell out that libraries can’t provide obscene or harmful materials to minors, some localities are enacting laws that allow people to object to material that violates community standards or is inappropriate or objectionable. The question is, Lipinski said, who defines the standards and decides what is objectionable.
Another trend is legislation that takes decision making about objectionable materials out of the hands of library or school boards and gives it to boards appointed by legislators or local politicians, Lipinski said.
“Instead of having the library and the librarians have discretion as to what goes into the collection, that discretion now resides with some subset of local officials who probably don’t know anything about libraries.”
Divisions reflected
The trends reflect divisions in the country, Lipinski added. “You have some purple, but you’ve got a lot of blue, and you’ve got a lot of red, and they don’t see eye to eye, especially on issues revolving around race history, critical race theory and alternative lifestyles like LGBTQA+.”
“Library collections can be like a mirror where patrons want to see themselves reflected in the story,” he said, “but the collections also have value as a window where a patron can look and see what it is like to be on the other side.”
While the federal judiciary has generally supported efforts to protect patrons’ access to books and materials, a case from Texas may be headed to the Supreme Court, depending on the result from an appellate court on rehearing, Lipinski said.
In that case, county officials had required librarians to remove 17 books from library shelves amid complaints about the subject matter, which included racism and transgender issues. In a lawsuit against county officials, seven library patrons claimed the books were illegally removed. The federal judgment returned 8 of the books to the shelves.
Libraries are dealing with some of the book ban issues by asking those complaining about books to fill out a form for each book, rather than doing blanket requests to ban multiple books. Some libraries also request that any complaints come from residents in the area they serve, rather than from people living elsewhere.
Lipinski is encouraged, he said, because he sees new students in his courses – future librarians – becoming very vested and concerned about attempts to curtail library freedoms. At least one SOIS alumnus was part of a lawsuit challenging a book ban in his state.
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National Banned Books Week is Sept. 22-28. The panel discussion at the Milwaukee Public Library is co-sponsored by the library and Penguin Random House. Lipinski noted that two recent reports, from PEN America and the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, explore the issue.
