All Access. Framing the Message: Speaking Out Against Censorship

by Chad Heck, January 2022

The attack on intellectual freedom at schools and libraries in the United States has never been so great within my lifetime. Around the country, politicians have been introducing legislation to remove library materials that are deemed objectionable from collections. The reasons offered for these objections are expanding as well. While many libraries have become used to challenges to materials with LGBTQ+ content or content that challengers determine to be sexually explicit, this new wave of challenges might also include materials on race, racial identity, or even historical accounts that might challenge dominant perspectives. Now is the time to brush up on our library advocacy.

The very best advocacy work is having a good library program. Shining star library programs inspire our communities to become advocates for the important work that we do. As school librarians, we educate our students, families, and communities on the importance of intellectual freedom. We model practices of discussing difficult topics in books. We also practice transparency in our selection process and make available our collection development policies. We communicate the value of having books and materials available that some may find offensive. We focus our service on the informational and recreational needs of individuals—choices on what to read and access are up to individual students and their families, not on what the librarian, the principal, or other teachers determine is appropriate.

In these troubled times, having a good library program alone is not enough. There are strong voices that want to shift the conversations around access to information to one where students, children, and even the citizenry in general must be protected from ideas that they've deemed dangerous. To be clear, these voices have emerged from both sides of the political spectrum. For the last few years, many of these voices have come from the political Left calling for materials to be removed because they are perceived to be sexist, homophobic, racist, or otherwise offensive to minoritized populations. Now, it seems the political Right is leading the charge by challenging materials that deal with certain racial topics (often inaccurately lumped together under the term "critical race theory") or materials that include sex or sexuality. Because this heated moment threatens our library ethics and values, librarians cannot remain politically neutral on these issues. Paradoxically, we must give up our neutrality and participate in this process in order for us to maintain collections that are representative of all of the perspectives of our communities.

When framing a message against removing materials from library or classroom spaces, awareness of your audience and its values goes a very long way. If legislation proposed to facilitate easier removal of library materials is coming from the political Right, it may be best to appeal to the Right's libertarian values. Paint a picture of how this course represents "Big Government" making decisions about what citizens can and cannot read. If you can do so in a way that is not inflammatory or hyperbolic, incorporate words and phrases such as governmental overreach, censorship, and police state. Censorship tools work both ways. If the Right legislates tools to facilitate the removal of "offensive" books with the intention of targeting books addressing racial issues, those same tools could be used to remove books that may conform with their own values but others find offensive.

This is our call to action. The United States has not seen this level of pro-censorship activity in a generation. Now is the time to have the conversations about why governmental oversight of what content citizens are allowed to access is not only bad, but flies in the face of the democratic principles on which this country was founded. It is time to get out our loud library voices and be heard.