Educators, authors call for student action against censorship following screening of ‘The Librarians’
- ASHLEY STALNECKER | Staff Writer
- 5 hrs ago
York County gained national attention in 2021 when the Central York School District board prohibited teachers from using hundreds of books told from the perspectives of Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ children.
The school board later reversed its decision after students organized a series of protests, but the district continues to face complaints from the community over library materials.
Patricia Jackson, an English teacher in the district, stood with students in opposing the ban and continues to stand against censorship. While speaking on a panel of educators and authors at Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse in Lancaster city Friday, following a sold-out showing of the documentary “The Librarians,” Jackson pleaded for others to join her.
“I don’t need allies. I don’t need supporters” Jackson said to the more than 70 people who bought tickets to the show. “I need co-conspirators. I need you to be in the arena with me, not putting me on the front line, but walking hand in hand with me as I take on the battle.”
“The Librarians” is an independent film that mainly follows the plight of librarians and teachers in Texas who, like Jackson, pushed back against book challenges and bans following the release of the Krause List. The list, named after Texas State Rep. Matt Krause, targets books focused on race and LGBTQ+ stories. Librarians in Florida, another hotbed of book banning, are featured in the documentary, too.
The film is directed by Kim Snyder, whose most recent film, “Death by Numbers,” was nominated for an Academy Award for best short documentary. Pennsylvania School Librarians Association President and Ephrata Area High School librarian Samantha Hull organized the documentary screening in conjunction with Lancaster independent bookstore Pocket Books and Zoetropolis, and Hull presided over the panel discussion.
READ: Award-winning French documentary chronicling 2023 Elizabethtown school board race makes US debut
Joining Jackson on the panel were two Lancaster County authors whose books have been challenged, Laurie Halse Anderson and A.S. King; and Amanda Deck, a Lancaster County public school librarian who serves on the state library association’s Intellectual Freedom Task Force. Deck also volunteers for the association’s Read for Liberty confidential reporting system for Pennsylvania library workers and communities experiencing censorship.
“The goal of hosting the opening screening and having the panel was to pull this film that focuses on national, and broadly Southern, issues into our backyard, to inform the community that similar, if not identical things occur here too,” Hull said in an email Monday. “There truly is a playbook and it’s been implemented right here. We hope the film, panel, and information encouraged people to learn more about what’s happening in their home districts.”
Lancaster County has had its share of book challenges and changes to school library materials policies. One county district, Eastern Lancaster County, banned a book, “Lighter Than My Shadow,” for depicting eating disorders, mental illness and sexual content.
Most recently, the Elizabethtown Area school board voted unanimously to remove three books, a movie and a poem from the district’s curriculum over complaints that their content was violent or sexually explicit.
Censorship in Lancaster County
As the Elizabethtown Area school board decision highlights, book bans are still “very much an issue,” Deck said Friday.
Deck, who takes calls for the Read for Liberty hotline, said she’s sat with librarians who have been accused of distributing child pornography in school libraries or whose children live in the district where they’re employed and were harassed by their peers or community members.
“I think (“The Librarians”) is such an important film,” Deck said. “I’m not surprised by anything in the film, even though it’s still really difficult to watch. We are dealing with the same thing here in Pennsylvania.”
There’s a “playbook” in Pennsylvania, Deck said, by which pro-censorship groups elect pro-censorship individuals to school boards to change school board policy to more easily review and remove books in their districts’ libraries.
Pro-censorship board members “open up the school board library policy, and once they do that, they can write all kinds of very damaging language into this policy … language that makes it harder to get books into the library in the first place, and really hamstrings the professional librarians and their judgment in order to collect those materials.”
Several Lancaster County school districts have changed their library policies to restrict access or more easily review and remove school library books, including Elizabethtown Area, Hempfield, Ephrata Area, Pequea Valley and Warwick.
Many of the challenges facing Texas librarians in the documentary mirror those faced by librarians in central Pennsylvania, Deck said, because outside groups are targeting books for parents or community members to challenge in their local school districts. Moms for Liberty, a conservative parental rights group, is among the censoring groups highlighted in the documentary and has been a key player in local campaigns against “inappropriate content” in school libraries.
Moms for Liberty publishes information about books and why it believes they should be challenged in school libraries. The group maintains a page on its website that features reviews of books prepared by group volunteers.
The Lancaster County chapter circulates its own lists, too, pinpointing “concerning” or “inappropriate” books in Cocalico, Manheim Township, Warwick and Lampeter-Strasburg high schools. In 2022, then-chapter President Rachel Wilson Snyder posted a call to action in the Moms for Liberty Facebook group to rally parents to challenge materials in school libraries.
Librarians in the documentary and in Lancaster County have even been named in criminal complaints, alleging they are distributing child pornography via the books they place on school library shelves.
No librarian was charged following investigations into librarians in the Granbury Independent School District in Granbury, Texas, or locally in Hempfield School District. In January 2023, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said none of the books targeted by district residents in the Hempfield complaint met the legal definition of pornographic or obscene content.
‘The Librarians’ Showings
Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse, 112 N. Water St., Lancaster, will have four more showings of the documentary “The Librarians.” Show dates and times are 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23; and 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 24. Tickets cost $15 for adults and $13 for seniors and students. For more information, visit zoetropolis.com/movies/the-librarians/.
Panel urges students to speak out
Lititz author King, who has been lauded by The New York Times Book Review as “one of the best young adult writers working today,” spoke out against censorship Friday, saying librarians and English teachers like Jackson are putting “life-saving” literature into children’s hands.
Despite her books being banned in some libraries, King said she won’t stop writing; she sees her continued dedication to writing books as a form of fighting censorship.
“All censorship does is undermine intelligence,” King said.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Educators, authors call for student action against censorship following screening of ‘The Librarians’ | Local News | lancasteronline.com
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