The American Civil Liberties Union wants a Texas school district to issue an apology for removing 131 books from school shelves, The Texas Tribune is reporting.
Most of the books deal with LGBTQ topics or on discussions of race and identity. The books were ordered removed earlier this year by the Granbury Independent School District (ISD). The district has already returned 103 of the titles, after concluding they were acceptable.
Kate Huddleston, an attorney for the ACLU, said the district should apologize. And she called on district officials to issue statement explicitly affirming its commitment to LGBTQ and racial inclusivity, as well as to teaching the history of racism and racial injustice, according to the Tribune.
And the ACLU, in a Monday letter to the school district added: "Granbury ISD's mass book removals have already harmed students in the district, both by directly suppressing speech and access to ideas and by sending the message to Black, brown, and LGBTQ+ students that Granbury ISD rejects their history and belonging in the community."
Nearly 1,000 people had signed a petition launched by students, who were protesting the removal of the books.
A book ban resurgence has sprung across the country's public school libraries, from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. The books most in contention regard Black and LGBTQ issues, Axios reported.
And the push to ban the books in question comes during a pivotal election year, which in part, places schools at the center of the culture war.
According to the American Library Association's Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the organization tracked at least 330 challenges from September to November 2021 alone.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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