![obama gay pride flags ran obama gay pride flags ran](https://meaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/rainbow-flag-640x369.jpg)
Children’s books about her story – “Brand New School, Brave New Ruby,” and “The Story of Ruby Bridges” – have been banned from classrooms in Pennsylvania. Ruby Bridges, a civil rights icon who was the first Black child to desegregate an all-white Louisiana school, was a key witness at the hearing.
#OBAMA GAY PRIDE FLAGS RAN FREE#
Jamie Raskin, cited a report by PEN America - an organization that advocates for the protection of free speech - that found from July 2021 to the end of March this year, more than 1,500 books were banned in 86 school districts in 26 states.
![obama gay pride flags ran obama gay pride flags ran](https://media.them.us/photos/5f0f345ac82e8daa1adc5d88/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/pride-flags_bisexual.jpg)
At a recent hearing, Maryland Democrat Rep. “They will tell you that they’re asserting parental rights to direct their children’s education, but the impact of their activities is to deny other parents the right to make decisions about their own children’s education, and particularly for older adolescents denying the First Amendment rights and agency for elder adolescents to read and access the materials they find important for their lives.”Ĭongressional Democrats have also raised concerns about the increase in book bans across the country. “We’re seeing nationally organized groups create local chapters, and use social media to amplify their demands,” Caldwell-Stone said. Moms for Liberty has more than 100 local chapters across 35 states. Some of those groups that have challenged school boards include Moms for Liberty, an organization that has strong GOP ties and has local chapters that “target local school board meetings, school board members, administrators, and teachers” to push right-wing policies, as reported by Media Matters.
![obama gay pride flags ran obama gay pride flags ran](https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/123033b/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http:%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F2012%2F05%2F120509_biden_flag_obama_ap_328.jpg)
“And so when I say critical race theory, I’m not using it in the sense that it actually should be used, which is to describe a graduate level academic analysis of law and political systems, but this use of it to describe books and materials that offer alternative perspectives on American history that reflect the lives of Black persons and their experience of slavery, their experiences with police violence, and so we’ve seen a rising number of challenges to those books.” “There was an increased number of challenges to books dealing with race and racism that accelerated when we started seeing complaints from organized groups about critical race theory,” she said. She said those bans have ranged from picture books depicting same-sex couples to young adult books talking about gender identities.Ĭaldwell-Stone said, “the one thing that has interrupted this” trend of banning books centered around LGBTQ+ themes comes after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. Some of the states with the most aggressive book bans include Texas with 713 bans, Pennsylvania with 456 bans and Florida with 204 bans.ĭeborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said book bans the last 10 years have dealt “with the lives of LGBTQIA persons, either reflecting their experiences, or talking about issues of concern to the LGBTQIA community.” Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill to allow parents greater opportunity to review, and potentially object to, school library books that they find “inappropriate.”Īnd in Idaho, state House Republicans passed a bill that would allow librarians to be prosecuted for allowing minors to check out material deemed harmful. This year in Arizona, state Republicans put forth a measure that would ban schools from teaching or directing students to study any material that is “sexually explicit.” In Florida, Gov. A majority of the bans feature books written by authors who are people of color, LGBTQ+, Black and indigenous, and feature characters from marginalized groups.Īnd now, state Republicans lawmakers are joining the movement, spurred by ultra conservative groups, to ban books from public schools and libraries. In the last nine months, hundreds of books across dozens of states are being banned at an alarming rate. In some Tennessee classrooms, a nonfiction comic book about the atrocities of the Holocaust is banned.Īnd one school district in Wisconsin banned from libraries a picture book about a gay rights activist who was assassinated. Students in one Pennsylvania school district were not allowed to read a biography of the first Black President, Barack Obama.