Mar 6, 2021
In 2015 only 14.2% of characters in children’s books represented minorities; this number covered four different nationalities while 73.3% of characters were white. Meanwhile, 12.5% of characters were animals or inanimate objects. What does this mean? This means that there were more books about rabbits and bulldozers than about any other non-white race. With that in mind, the Minot Public Library began a Diversity Audit in 2020 to look deeply at their collection of books see if the collection represented diversity in a thoughtful way.
Why does diversity and representation matter for public libraries? Public libraries are intended to serve, and thus represent, everyone within a community. During the Minot Public Library’s November “Sweater Weather” program, staff reached out to local indigenous community members and asked them “When did you first read a book by an indigenous author?” One person responded stating that she didn’t read a book by an indigenous
Neon Nettle - Schools Now Undergoing Diversity Audits to Ensure Teachers Are Woke Enough - Teachers grilled about sexual identity, social justice, and other far-left virtues
One of the nation's leading independent schools recently conducted a "diversity audit" to determine how "woke" its teachers are about "sexual identity," [.]