A blog on US politics, Math, and Physics… with occasional bits of gaming

Book bans and educational standards

On the subject of book bans & related issues, particularly in Florida, but also elsewhere in the country:

The process is a lot more complex and opaque than folks are talking about, and many books are being removed despite the lack of a formal ban, in order to comply with changes to state law that have made the standards more ambiguous and more challenging for school libraries.

While the list of formal bans is very short, the confusion and separation of responsibility for the handling of controversial titles is deliberate. Formally, only the most egregious material is banned, but the burden of proof now rests on the folks wanting to keep the books in the classroom / library, and accompanying rhetoric by state lawmakers is encouraging parents and misinformed members of the community to object to a broad swath of subjects that conservatives find uncomfortable, including the existence of LGBT folks, the history of US race relations, and childrens' emotional development.

Saying that only pornographic materials are being removed is incorrect. If it's a politician or journalist making that claim, it's disingenuous.

Those equating conservative states' legal restrictions on left-leaning materials to liberals' boycott of conservative-leaning materials are missing a key distinction. Liberals' "bans" are almost entirely of the form "if you publish material we dislike, we won't buy it, and we will openly criticize you for it." Conservatives' "bans" are making heavy use of "if you publish material we dislike, we will sue you in court and encourage community violence against you".

The two are not equivalent.

Conservatives injuring themselves by banning mifepristone