Book censorship news, April 18, 2025
This week in the news of Book Banning, the prosecution is continuing: the American Civil Liberties Union continues the education agency of the Ministry of Defense on behalf of twelve students who argue that their rights to the first amendment are raped by censorship in their schools. In addition, the first public library to become a sanctuary of books in Pennsylvania, the dismissal of a pro-banning trial of Michigan and the overflow of the rhetoric of the prohibition of the book in the United Kingdom.
While Kelly Jensen left this week, the rest of the editorial team is filming to cover the news of censorship! The first story you will read below is Danika Ellis, the following two are from Erica Ezeifedi, and the last is from Rebecca Schinsky.
ACLU and Pentagon school students are pursuing books of books
For years, Kelly Jensen has pleaded in these censorship updates that the best way to push the wave of censorship is legal challenges, and it seems that we finally begin to see this happen. Last week, we reported on the ALA following DOGE for eliminating the IML. This week, the American Civil Liberties Union continued the education agency of the Ministry of Defense and the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for the abolition of the books of the schools led by the Department of Defense. 67,000 children from military families attend these schools on bases around the world.
ACLU has filed the trial on behalf of twelve students who argue that their first amendment rights are violated. They also argue that it endangers children by preventing their health education or learning abuse. In addition, this censorship means that advanced investment students are not taught to sex and gender who may appear on their AP psychology exam.
These schools were on the front line of anti-dei policies. In addition to removing books on gender, sexuality or breed, schools have also canceled the month in the history of blacks and the month of women’s history. Among the hundreds of deleted books are classic works such as To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and I know why the cage bird sings by Maya Angelou, as well as history books like A queer story from the United States by Michael Bronski and picture books like Julián is a mermaid by Jessica Love. Mein Kampf remained on the shelves.
Literary activism
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The main lawyer, the Senior Aclu lawyer, Emerson Sykes, said,
“The quality of children’s education, their exposure to ideas and the preparation of citizens in the next generation are all injured by this censorship … This is not how public schools are supposed to work – students have the right to learn and access the information that should be above the political fray.”
It is not the only type of censorship that these students face. Their directories have also been limited to any mention of the existence of trans people. A letter from the Management teaches that “the directories of the students must not include visual representations, written content or editorial choice which will directly or indirectly support teaching, advancement and / or promotion of” gender ideology “and / or” social transition “.”
Learn more about this story at New York Times and the Tutor.
Do not miss an extract highlighting the best new poetry collections of 2025 (until now) after this censorship book.
The MT. Lebanon library has become the first public library in Pennsylvania to declare a book sanctuary. Books sanctuaries, for the uninitiated, are places that “undertake to collect and protect the endangered books which meet the standards of the library collection policy”.
The director of the library, Robyn Vitttek, said that making the library a book sanctuary was a way to say that “libraries are for everyone”. The Board of Directors of the Library voted to adopt the resolution declaring their library a book sanctuary in mid-February, joining the public libraries of Chicago, Dayton, Ohio, Hoboken, NJ and Arlington, goes, in their fight against the book Banning.
Vitttek said that the MT. Lebanon community’s response to become a book sanctuary was “100% positive”.
In more new disputes, the Michigan Court of Appeal rejected legal action which had tried to ban the books of a library in the school district in western Michigan. The group which gave birth to the pursuit – the “parents and taxpayers against pornography in Rockford public schools” – therefore made the assertion that 14 pounds on the library shelves were “sexually explicit”, but the court judged that the group could not prove that they were negatively affected by books.
The books they targeted were among the most prohibited nationally and understood:
- A court of mist and fury By Sarah J. Maas
- A gel and the light of the stars By Sarah J. Maas
- Breathless By Jennifer Niven
- Darkness By Ashley Hope Pérez
- Crank By Ellen Hopkins
- Ask passengers as king
- Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Not all boys are blue by George M Johnson
- Gender queer By Maia Kobabe
- Beyond Magenta By Susan Kuklin
- The most blue eye by Toni Morrison
- Looking for Alaska By John Green
- Lawn by Jonathan Evson
- Fun house: a tragicomic family by Alison Bechdel
British librarians see the impact of American censorship attempts
Librarians through the pond report an increase in requests to remove the books from their shelvesA change they attribute to the growing influence of pressure groups based on the United States. As in the United States, many targeted books to prohibit the center on LGBTQ +themes. Currently, most challenges of the book in the United Kingdom come from individuals and small groups, but the librarians declare that they are harassed by members of the groups based in the United States online, and a librarian found the propaganda of a group based in the United States on its desk. While library professionals in the United Kingdom indicate that the situation is not (yet) as disastrous as in the United States, the world media ecosystem and The rise of far -right groups in the world Make it a serious threat to intellectual freedom. You would be right to ask yourself if Moms for Liberty (named a group of hatred of the Southern Poverty Law Center) is one of the American groups which now reach abroad. The guardian does not specify.
The following comes to you from the reimbursement.
This week, we highlight the best new poetry collections of 2025 (so far)! From deeply personal to powerfully political, many of these collections reflect the Zeitgeist and introduce new voices into poetry. Read the rest for an extract and become an All Access member to unlock the full message.
How is it that we are already more than a quarter of the path until 2025? I am ahead of my reading goals and I always feel so far at the same time. I made a lot of poetry, however, I find a lot of wonderful and surprising voices emerging. It is early, but completely time to check to date some of the best new poetry collections of 2025.
It’s funny how appropriate these collections are. Keep in mind that the publication moves very slowly, so that the books that were published in the first quarter of 2025 were probably completed at the end of 2023 or at the beginning of 2024, seeing only the day recently. Thus, these collections were written as last year’s presidential election approaches. Nevertheless, many of these collections are like guttural reactions to the world at the moment. Incredible how much art and premonitory artists can be, huh?
These collections of poetry pass the whole range of deeply personal to powerfully political. Let’s face it, these two are often the same anyway, especially with regard to poetry. The most exciting for me is the number of these best new poetry collections from 2025 so far are fresh voices of the poetic scene. Let’s do in these collections, okay?
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