COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a top Republican prospect for governor, wants to block public funding for library books that might appeal to the “prurient” — meaning sexual — interests of minors.
NEW YORK (AP) — The wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify, the American Library Association reported Friday. Numbers for 2022 already approach last year's totals, which were the highest in decades.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new Missouri law outlawing books with sexually explicit images from school libraries is about to take effect.
Starting Sunday, it will be a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for librarians and other educators to give students access to such material.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As Tennesseans prepare to enjoy fireworks and cookouts over the long weekend, a long slate of new state laws affecting transgender athletes, which books can be in school libraries, homeless camps, and harsh criminal sentences will go into effect Friday.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Hootie & the Blowfish got its start at the University of South Carolina and the school is now home to a boatload of the Grammy Award winning rock band's memorabilia.
Longtime fan Rick Noble on Friday donated his collection of all things Hootie & the Blowfish — including CDs, ticket stubs, an autographed guitar and T-shirts — to the school where the band was formed in 1986.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Supreme Court has long recognized that students have their own First Amendment rights in school.
Removing books from school libraries, as some parent groups and individuals in Utah have pushed local school boards and administrators to do this school year over what they deem inappropriate content, “can constitute an official suppression of ideas, in violation of the First Amendment,” says a new memo sent to schools by the Utah Attorney General’s Office.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers closed out their annual legislative session Thursday, striking a deal that would let a politically appointed panel remove books from public school libraries statewide through a new veto power over local school board decisions.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republicans advanced legislation Wednesday that would place more scrutiny over what books are placed in public schools libraries, moments after the bill’s House sponsor said any inappropriate book should be burned.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Friday vetoed conservative Republicans’ proposed ban on transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports and a GOP proposal aimed at making it easier for parents to try to remove materials from public school classrooms and libraries.
RIDGELAND, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi library is on track to receive the full amount of money it was budgeted, months after a mayor threatened to withhold funding because the library displayed LGBTQ books for young readers.
NEW YORK (AP) — Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, has never been so busy.
“A year ago, we might have been receiving one, maybe two reports a day about a book being challenged at a library.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A provision that aimed to restrict Indiana students from accessing “harmful materials” at libraries was killed for a final time after lawmakers voted down the language in the last minutes of the Legislative session Wednesday.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Amid a national spike in book challenges and bans, school librarians across Tennessee are quickly becoming the target of scorn and skepticism from Republican lawmakers and parents pushing for more oversight on what materials are provided to children.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Less than a week after a local Tennessee school board attracted national attention for banning a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, Gov.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Legislature is considering three bills aimed at improving education for Native American students that would increase funding to tribal education departments and libraries and allow more tribal control over how funds are spent.
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Senate committee on Thursday killed legislation that would have required parental consent for students to check out sexually explicit books from school libraries.
ATLANTA (AP) — Social conservatives are looking to push education policy to the forefront when Georgia lawmakers begin meeting Monday, driven by a national tumult over the pandemic and race.