The opening spread of “Educational Gag Orders,” illustrated by Matt Chase, and written by @PENAmerica’s Jeremy Young and Jonathan Friedman, received a 2024 merit award from The Society of Publication Designers (SPD). Check it out in the spring 2023 issue of #LibEdMag ! #SPD59 ow.ly/pZ2X50RibT8

Our Los Angeles Managing Director Allison Lee testified before the California state senate against a new bill that would require schools and school libraries to ban books that any individual in the community finds harmful to minors.

Utterly absurd over-reaction from a college president either too foolish and or too weak to stand up for good sense and academic integrity.
A Tenured Professor Was Removed From the Classroom Over a Pro-Palestine Essay chronicle.com/article/a-tenu…

Big news! @BarnesandNoble is running a huge preorder sale! If you want to preorder my upcoming book, FLAMBOYANTS, and get 25% off, join their free rewards program and use code PREORDER25 at checkout!

#BNPreorder
bit.ly/flamboyantsbar…

Double The Book Bans In Half The Time: PEN America's Latest Book Ban Report by Buttered Jorts (fka kelly jensen) 🐱🐰 in Book Riot bookriot.com/pen-americas-l…

A new #BannedInTheUSA report from PEN America highlights school book bans from the fall 2023 semester.

Between July and December 2023, we recorded over 4,000 book bans—more than the entirety of last school year.

More: pen.org/press-release/… #BannedBooks #FreeTheBooks

The complaint in video 3 is that one book shows 2 men holding hands, and another has a unicorn that says they are neither male nor female. 🦄

Last month an agreement finally resulted in the FLDOE sending clear guidance to districts that classroom instruction limits in the law do not apply to library books.

Now, who is going to explain it to the intolerant books banners (including the M4L Chair of Santa Rosa County)?

Great read. Thank you PEN America for sharing.

'Our future is dead.' NBC News offers a gut-wrenching look at the bombing of Universities across Gaza. Higher ed is often seen as a vehicle for the powerless and unemployed; providing hope, skills education, knowledge. One angle on the profound carnage.
nbcnews.com/specials/gaza-…

Saying the quiet part loud!

Legislators are targeting public libraries, too.

Read about Louisiana’s HB 777, which would criminalize librarians and erode the freedom to read:
pen.org/destabilizing-… (1/2)

UPDATE: Statement from Dean Chemerinsky:

“I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.”

Two more “dinners will go forward on Wednesday and Thursday. I hope that there…

There’s a name for the kind of states and societies that defund #libraries , criminalize #librarians , ban books, and close educational programs that challenge the ruling party’s ideological commitments.

It’s not democracy.

New from me and Jeremy C. Young over at PEN America: Lawmakers are trying to legislative 'neutrality' onto higher ed. It is not going well.

The quiet banning of books, without votes, process, transparency. Just at the whims of those who want to control the books available to everyone. The latest from Davis, Utah:

'Do the negative responses to your work make you want to shy away from focusing on LGBTQ themes in future books?'