administrators have made hasty decisions school board members have jumped to conclusions based on out of context excerpts and librarians scrambled to play catch up to fight for our students rights. when books are removed communities lose the voice that that book represents. measuring the damage of lost voices is daunting and longitudinal we can measure the soaring rates of mental health disorders and adolescents many can directly correlate the teen mental health crisis to feelings of discontent loneliness and a lack of belonging. these are exactly the feelings that arise when we believe we are alone in what we are experiencing and these feelings can be especially brutal and and isolating and adolescence. the ability to learn about an appreciate the diversity of the human experience perspective and opinions is crucial to gaining a sense of belonging. we can gain this ability through our access to books and other resources. this is why a singular reaction to a book should never result in the immediate removal. of a resource, but instead be the basis for a conversation to understand the purpose of a library and the support and resources that librarians offer. and that was samantha hall a school librarian in lancaster county, pennsylvania discussing her perspective on book bands in schools. that was from a recent congressional hearing and in this edition of the about books program in podcast. we're looking specifically at the issue of book bands. whose instigating them what books are being flagged and why and what exactly is the goal of banning books? joining us now is the american library association's debra caldwell stone ms. caldwell stone. what are some of the issues that you work on? and what is your position there? well, i'm director of ala's office for intellectual freedom and our mission is to broadly the fan the right to read for everyone who uses libraries in the united states. so we work with individual librarians on defending the place of books on the shelf. we also keep track of censorship attempts in public libraries and school libraries across the country. we collect data on an annual basis, which becomes the data that feeds into our most challenged books list every year which you may be familiar with. we also work on law and policy issues that involve the freedom to read and the freedom to choose what one wants to read in the library. so we have a broad mission of protecting intellectual freedom for everyone and and to promote the democratic values that feed into that now when we say the words book band, what are we talking about? are we talking about a specific school? trick the state curriculum oh we are talking about a specific school board or a specific library board. the fact is in the united states. we don't have a national system of libraries or schools. it's all local government. and so it's decision by a local government agency to stop providing access to a book because of the ideas or opinions expressed in that book and given the first amendment applies to every government agency. we find that censorship wrong and we fight against it librarians acquire books for the benefit of the community. they follow policy and doing that. it's not arbitrary our capricious. they are very concerned about meeting the information needs of everyone in the community and that some one person might object to a particular book should not be a reason for taking it off the shelf particularly in regards to government agencies that are charged with providing free and open access to information under the first amendment now deb caldwell stone according to your office 39% of the book bands are initiated by parents 24% by general patrons 18% by board administration 10% by religious or political groups. when a parent requests a book to be removed from a school shelf or a public library shelf. do you take that seriously? we do we do believe in the right of every individual parent to guide their child's reading their students reading. however, we don't believe that an individual parent should be dictating to the entire community what's available to be read? we live in diverse communities. we have diverse identities diverse interests, not every book is going to suit every reader in the library whether it's a school library or public library and we hear from library users. especially library users who belong to traditionally marginalized groups like lgbtqia persons black person's persons of color. that's so important to find books that reflect their lives on the shelves of both school libraries and public libraries and that somebody might have an objection to these books for moral or religious regions or political reasons shouldn't be reason that they shouldn't be available to the communities library everyone and should represent. everyone in their collections and a government agency shouldn't be making decisions on some single persons moral or religious objections to a book to take it away from the community as a whole. when we look at the most challenged books that the ala puts out many of them deal with sexuality. correct. and a more specifically the books deal with gender identity or sexual orientation prior to this year. the most challenged book was a book now called melissa previously called george and it was actually a middle school book about a young person who is transgender and and their experience of dealing with that in the context of being a middle school student and nothing about that book was salacious or erotic. it was just a story about another student another young person dealing with the situation in their lives as many chapter books for that grade level do but just because it has a transgender character it became the most challenged book similarly. the other books on the most challenged lifts often deal either in nonfiction ways or fictional ways with lgbtqia persons. the other most challenged book, and frankly in the wake of efforts to erase what's called critical race theory from schools or books dealing with the lived experiences of black persons and and offering alternative perspectives, particularly african-american perspectives on the history of racism and slavery in the united states. and so we're seeing most challenges being brought to books that elevate the voices of marginalized communities and our unit and our united states that reflect the diversity of our communities in the united states, and we find that extremely troubling librarians as i said want to serve the entire community make sure that everyone in the community can find the books that serve their needs that reflect their lives and the censorship attempts are really an effort to stop that and prevent that from happening. have you seen an increase in potential book bands or requests for book bands? we absolutely have and in fact, what's most troubling is that we're actually seeing organized groups come together at the local level and challenge books that they find this tastefully because they do deal with gender identity or sexual orientation or because they believe that falsely they are quote critical race theory unquote and thus try to remove them from classrooms and libraries. we're seeing these groups come crop up across the country and bring demands to school boards and library boards to remove these books that they have a disagree with they actually have lists of bad books. they'd like to see removed from libraries across the country and and so this has resulted in an unprecedented increase in the number of challenges this last year alone. we received 729 reports of efforts to remove books from schools and libraries across the country. and that those challenges represented efforts to remove 1,597 separate titles and and just to provide some perspective on this. we usually received between 300 and 400 challenge reports in an average year and usually only representing about 500 books. in those challenges more one-on-one challenges rather than lists of books to be removed and this campaign hasn't abated. we're still receiving an unprecedented number of challenge reports on a weekly basis. it's a real salt on our individual liberty to choose what we want to read for ourselves and our families and we're working to fight that we actually have a new campaign that is intended for individuals and communities to use called unite against book bands and it's meant for anyone who believes in the freedom to read the freedom to choose the freedom for every parent to make their own choices about what their family reads and to come together and say that the government shouldn't be using its power to dictate what we can read and choose and so we have set up this website. it's that unite against bookbands.org. everyone is free to visit and and there are is information there about book. those information there about how to raise the issue with school boards and library boards and defend the freedom to read and really good information about where the true support for reading lives. we found that when we did a survey this last spring we found that the vast majority of individuals in the united states actually do support the freedom to choose to what to read what they wish and that support for the freedom to read crosses political boundaries acrosses all ethnicities. it's over 71% of all voters and parents the united states that were surveyed said that they opposed government censorship of books in schools and libraries. well, i want to play you a little bit of video from the recent congressional hearing on book banning. this is representative byron, donald a republican of florida. and here he is talking about the role of parents. i wrote legislation about providing people who live within the county the ability to review all material whether it's classroom or library material and that all taxpayers whether they are parents or living residing the county should have an ability to review that material and examine it because they're the ones that pay for it. so if the body politics the parents that live in a community decide that they find material objectionable and they go to the elected their elected representatives who have authority over the school district and they vote to remove material. wouldn't you say that is the appropriate way of representative democracy is supposed to work. better question. here's the better question. should parents have the ability to have their voices heard about material that they think should be in front of their children whether it is mandatory or whether it is optional. do you think parents should have that ability to voice their opinions? yes, absolutely. as i said in my statement and they do have that right the books that are being banned are a majority of the books from library, which are complete choice. they are not the books in our curriculum or required reading you absolutely have a say in what your child should be able to read but they're no longer coming to us the professionals that i finished my answer. the gentleman has the talk about the gentleman 45 seconds. so i gotta like parents have to say just a sin they don't have a say for everybody you'll get a chance. it's funny. i would not say to parents have the right to say for other parents. what i am saying is do parents or a large part of the community at large have an ability to lobby or engage with their elected officials on the local level to decide. what's in the room. i would say the answer to that is yes. deborah caldwell stone, what's your reaction to that exchange? um, i absolutely support the librarian or educator who is responding to that, you know, certainly there are already tools in place for any parent who is concerned about what their child reads in schools or even in public libraries librarians are anxious to work with parents to guide young readers to the books that the parents believe are appropriate for the family for whatever reason and schools already have policies in place that allow parents to opt their child out of reading assignments or even complete curriculum assignments, if they don't feel it's a good fit for their child what i find objectionable is the idea that a loud voice a vocal minority can go to a school board and deny access to information for the entire community using the idea that well taxpayers pay for it means that well, what about the taxpayers who happen to want books that deal with? topics that others find problematic or controversial it's simply doesn't work that way school boards and library boards, we entrust them to exercise broad discretion to higher professionals education professionals library professionals who are trained in child development reading skills literacy skills to select books according to the criteria. they set out that meet the information needs of the students and the community that meet the information needs of the community as a whole in the case of a public library and that choice should remain with the individual reader once those books are on the shelf once those books are chosen, you know, it is a choice. no one has to pick up those books and read them but having that book available to certain members of the community, maybe lifesaving we hear over and over again from adolescents that being able to find books about gender identity and sexual identity on their library shelf can be so helpful to them, but helpful to their mental health can even be life-saving it's certainly affirming and helps them grow up to be effective adults who can function in society who are prepared to go to college enter the military enter a career, you know, the fact that the information available is available by choice to others in the community does know harm to any other family. and as i said librarians are anxious to identify and acquire the materials that would serve the information needs of families of all kinds and and they should work with their librarians. it's a false dichotomy to say that oh, we have to supervise what library professionals are doing. they are professionals. they are trained to do what they are supposed to do which is to meet the information needs of everyone in the community and i do mean everyone it shouldn't be subject to a heckler's veto or a narrow loud voice who may have more or political objections. material when others in the community so clearly want to read that book. deborah caldwell stone with the american library association. thank you for your time on about books. oh, thank you for the opportunity. i'm so pleased to be able to be here. thank you. now according to the american library association the top 10 books that are being banned from school libraries and other locations include maya. kobabi's genderqueer jonathan everson's lawn-boy angie thomas's the hate you give as well as sherman. alexie's the absolutely true story of a part-time indian and susan cocklin's beyond magenta transgender teens speak out. well, here's a little bit more video from that recent congressional hearing on banning books. it's representative jim jordan a republican of ohio and he's talking with jonathan pidlusny of the american council of trustees and alumni and when it comes out, you know elementary or you know primary primary education. that's that's about what's appropriate for kids. that's that's a different debate than college campuses adults free. speech. is that right? absolutely, right. so i think it's perfectly reasonable for k-12 to ask are these resources while tailored to our educational objectives and so you can never remove a book for to restrict access to political ideas or social perspectives, right? however, and this is from justice blackmon writing in in pico first amendment principles would allow a school board to refuse to make a book available to students because it contains offensive language or because it is psychologically or intellectually inappropriate for the age group or even perhaps because the ideas it advances are manifestly inimical to the public welfare. yeah because moms and dads don't like that. that's a different. that's a different animal. and now joining us on about books is tiffany justice. she's with a group called moms for liberty first off mrs. justice. what is your group? we are a nonprofit grassroots organization of parents across the country in our mission is to unify educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government and when you say all levels of government, does that include? checking and monitoring. what books are in school libraries? sure because we have government schools. have you ever recommended a book being removed from a library? am i personally haven't recommended a book be removed from the library, but if i was still sitting on school board, which i did here in florida from 2016 to 2020. i'm a mom of four children who attend public school ages 17 through 10 if i had been aware of the books that were in these libraries and i wasn't but i would have then actually asked for many of these books to be removed because i do not believe that they are appropriate for the age groups in which they're being presented and it's this more of an age group thing for you than it is a political ideology. yeah, i don't really think politics belong in this conversation at all. what we're seeing is some very sexually explicit graphic material that has made its way into our classrooms and our campuses and our school libraries, and i think parents would like to know a couple things including how did those books get there and what processes and procedures are there to stop that from happening again there. be accountability here for what children are being taught and exposed to in school and does that begin with electing the school board? yeah, i absolutely i mean i love local control and i love serving on school board. it was a wonderful opportunity and i think it's important that every community have that conversation about what's being taught in the schools and how people feel about it in the community and every voice can be heard, you know, there are situations where moms may have a concern about a book and maybe that concern as it is kind of reasoned out. it doesn't hold water. but the truth of the matter is that parents have the ability and the right to ask questions about their children's education. it's the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. well one of the witnesses mrs. justice at the recent congressional hearing on book banning was mindy freeman. she's a philadelphia area mother and she was talking about her trans daughter. i want to get your response to what she had to say. lily also happens to be a female of trans experience. she is proud to be trans and we are proud of her. being able to be visible for others and seeing herself in the books. she reads is so very important. i want to be clear. if there is one sound bite to arise from my appearance here today, let it be this one. no book made my child become transgender any more than a book could have turned her eyes from brown to blue. let me tell you a little bit about lily's journey. lily will tell you that as soon as she could recognize herself in the mirror the person looking back at her was not the person she was. the male presenting person reflecting back at her did not align correctly with her being. as lily was growing up during her younger years. she presented in what would be considered a more feminine way. as someone that had never known a transgender person while this out of gender norm behavior made my spouse and i questioned what was going on with lily. we did not discourage her from joining the things she loved. in early elementary school lily lacked the words insight and confidence to describe what she was feeling. as school activities began to separate boys from girls this only frustrated her. in fourth grade when boys and girls were separated to learn about what was going on in their bodies during puberty lily began to panic. after sharing her feelings with my older two daughters. she came to my spouse in me. we did not have the knowledge of everything lgbtq, especially trans related. but what we did know is that we loved our child and that we would support her no matter what and this is when our learning journey began. we shared with lily's fifth grade teacher what lily was going through and her teacher brought to our attention alex. gino's book george now melissa an award-winning children's novel about a transforth grader and said that lily had the option to read it. we appreciated the visibility that this provided to lily as well as the support not only by the teacher but by the school for having age appropriate books accessible on the shelves. mrs. justice, what's your response to what mindy freeman had to say about her trans daughter? now, i think there's a lot to unpack there to be honest with you. i'm glad that the parent and the teacher had a good line of communication and that the teacher was able to work with the parent as the parent was directing the upbringing of their child as they have the right to do to find resources to be able to help to support that child. and should that book that was referenced in that video be allowed to be in the lutt school library as far as it sounds like a book that's covering a lot of sensitive content including the sexuality and the gender identity or the sexual orientation perhaps of a child and so, you know, i will be honest and tell you that we have a contagion going on in this country something called rapid-onset gender dysphoria where we are seeing a huge spike in children that are identifying as transgender. it's extremely concerning to me as a mother and as a woman the idea that we're somehow telling boys or girls that there's a right way to be a boy or a girl. it feels regressive in fact, and so there's a lot to talk about in that comment and what those mother in the comments that mom made but there's no doubt to me that that mom loves her child and wants to give that child everything that they need now. should that book be on a public school library to be accessible? every child and i think there are many parents across this country. that would tell you the answer to that is no in fact, it should not be available to every child. does that mean that the book is being banned? no, sir. it does not mean that it is being banned. it can be in public. it can be in public libraries. it can be in bookstores. there are lots of different places where parents can access that type of a book or community resources can be provided. however when we're talking about public schools, and we're talking about all of our children together, there's a bit of an understanding that we've had about the roles of school and home and those boundaries and so what i think you're seeing parents across the country saying is i raise my children the government doesn't we don't co-parent with the government and there are certain sensitive subjects that we would like to be able to be directing the conversation around for our children. this is one of those things parents are very concerned about this idea about gender identity. that was never discussed in any of our public schools. now taking a front-row seat in our children's education and everything they do including for many of our girls how safe they feel in the bathrooms at their school. so public schools have made accommodations for children for a very long time and i think in this situation there need to be accommodations made for this child. so this child feels safe and valued that the mother is still directing the upbringing of the child, but that the other children and parents that that school also have the opportunity to broach these type of sensitive subjects that really we still believe belong at home. tiffany justice, was there an incident or a moment that created that made you co-found moms for liberty. yeah, as i said, i'm a mom of four kids i unpack a lot of backpacks and then i ran for school board in my own community, but during covid i have to tell you that the normal procedure of a parent coming and expressing concerns about their child at that local level was broken at that time during covid and what i saw was a system a school system. that was very intent and would do anything they could to protect the system and the children were left to shoulder the burdens of adult selfishness and fear oftentimes and as a mom and as a school board member what i saw was districts ignoring parents ignoring their concerns about virtual learning and we are now dealing with a nation of children who are grappling with two years of lockdowns in this pandemic that have affected their lives in ways. i think many adults cannot even imagine parents voices need to be louder than any other stakeholder in conversation about education parents need to be part of these committees to decide. what's appropriate for children to be learning in schools and local control and school boards are one of the best ways to be able to do that to get elected. so, you know tina and i co-founders just felt like parents needed a voice and we could help them to find that voice tiffany justice co-founder of moms for liberty. thank you for being on about books. thank you for having me. now according to the american library association challenges are occurring 44% of the time in school libraries 37% of the time in public libraries 18% in school classrooms itself and 1% in other locations. and finally, here's representative nancy mace a republican from south carolina talking about alternatives to school libraries. and ms. hull, thank you for being here today and thank you for bringing your experience as a librarian with us this afternoon. so are the only libraries in the united states school libraries or those the only public libraries in the us. no, so are there libraries that maybe municipalities states or counties also create in different states across the country. i believe they're known as public libraries, right? so, is there anything that prevents a student from going to a public library if they can't find a book they want to read and their school library transportation would be the main one. okay. so if are there any other are they allowed to go to public library or students allowed to go to public library school libraries if they have transportation, that would be a parent decision. okay, are there other places where students or parents can get books? maybe a bookstore like a physical bookstore like a barnes and noble bookstore? perhaps if they had the financial meet and parents buy books online like from amazon, perhaps they have the financial. can you go to a place like goodwill and buy a book for less than a dollar or maybe even get it for free? goodwill selection is certainly not as expansive as those curious or other books stores. so is so what you're saying is there's more than one opportunity for a student or a parent to get a book to their kids liking it's not just they're not only limited to public schools. they can get a book from a lot of different places even a coffee shop if they wanted to write. yes. and we want to show you the map by pen america of where book bands have been taking place, especially in school districts. you can see that texas has had 713 bands in 16 different districts, pennsylvania, florida, oklahoma and texas are some of the states that have had the most bands in specific school districts. and this has been about books a podcast in program produced by c-span's book tv. to reminders the full book band hearing is available to watch online at cspan.org and about books is available as a podcast at the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcast. it we are going to jump a little bit ahead today from reconstruction and get into the memory of the war. it's a