Local News
Arizona Senate OKs Making List of Books to Ban in Schools (June, 2023)

• "State senators gave preliminary approval Thursday to a measure directing the Education Department to come up with a list of books to ban in public schools. And it wouldn’t just include lewd or sexual materials. SB1700 would require the department, now headed by elected Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, to also include on that list materials that 'promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns.’"

The Arizona Senate's book banning hysteria has gotten ... hysterical (March, 2023)

• "Opinion: The Senate passed a bill that would allow parents to demand banning nearly every book that’s ever been written. Is it just possible that this Legislature is off its ever living rocker?"

National News
Educational Intimidation: How "Parental Rights" Legislation Undermines the Freedom to Learn (August, 2023)

• PEN America's report on "the spread of state-level legislation whose provisions are best understood as forms of educational intimidation."

Advocating for the Right to Read | Digipalooza 2023 (August, 2023)

• "Book banning groups are becoming more organized, but libraries are evolving new tactics to oppose censorship efforts, panelists said during the '#UniteAgainstBookBans: Advocate for your community’s right to read' panel at OverDrive’s biennial Digipalooza conference in Cleveland August 9–11."

Panel of Librarians, Educators Discusses Censorship, Consequences in Wake of Recent State Laws (August, 2023)

• "Amid debates over access to library materials and topics discussed in school classrooms, the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site hosted a panel discussion... titled 'The Impact of Banning Books.' 'We've got a group of state legislators, we've got our governor, who are rattling their swords and threatening free open access to particular forms of knowledge, to particular forms of art and to books,' Dr. James D. Ross, associate professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said during his opening remarks for the discussion."