There's Something Happening Here

Texas school districts show some fight in response to the legislature's repressive new book bills.

We’re getting lots of reports of bad things going down in Texas as students return to classrooms after our lawmakers went nuts passing anti-book laws like Senate Bill 12, Senate Bill 13, and Senate Bill 412. We’ve heard from teachers that have had to empty their classroom libraries—as we predicted. We’ve heard from librarians who have had to slash their purchase lists, some by as much as 80%—again, as we’ve predicted. We’re already heard from librarians who are being told to expect long delays in their book purchases. Guess what? We predicted that.

I started writing a post about all that awfulness, trying to draw a distinction between the nasty effects of the laws as written and the consequences of districts overreacting or giving in to pressure from activists pushing schools to go beyond what the law requires.

But then a new trend emerged. It started with the superintendent of College Station ISD, Tim Harkrider, who said SB13 “was written to create discord in communities and take rights away from librarians and others … to create a controversy about library books that’s a figment of their imagination.”

Then the entire board of Spring ISD decided not to adopt a new library acquisition policy in its regular August meeting. Instead they decided to discuss other options with the district’s legal counsel.

The policy seemed poised to sail through its first vote—a motion had been made and seconded to accept it in its entirety—when trustee Winford Adams spoke up, saying, “I fundamentally oppose this policy.”

Specifically, Adams objected to the policy’s removal of wording that limited clarified that, while parents have a right to direct their own children’s upbringing, they do not have the right to limit the access of other parents’ children to valuable books. “I do not believe that another parent should be able to dictate which texts my child has access to. And I think the legislature made a mistake when they implemented this policy, and we’re going to see some detriment to students.”

“I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings when I was in high school,” said Adams, referencing Maya Angelou’s 1969 classic autobiography, which is one of more than 900 books that activists are demanding be banned from schools statewide. “And I don’t think it’s appropriate for a random parent, however well meaning, to be able to make that book unavailable to all kids in the district.”

Adams was quickly seconded by another trustee, and the board voted 6-0 to look for other legal options to address the requirements of SB13.

But there’s more. I won’t say where I’m hearing this from, but I’m also aware of district and school administrators who are quietly but firmly refusing to comply in advance—who are saying that if the fascists in charge of the state want them to remove educationally valuable books or misgender their students, then the state is just going to have to make them.

For a number of reasons, SB12 and SB13 have hit Texas schools harder than previous educational gag orders. That’s bad, of course. I don’t want to minimize how bad that is. But it also means more and more educators are being forced to think about their values and ethics. And those teachers, librarians, and administrators are having to decide how they’re going to respond if they’re asked to do something that contradicts what they know to be best practices in education. Or, you know, the Constitution.

Ultimately, of course, the state has the power—unless and until the courts recognize these laws as unconstitutional. Adams acknowledged as much in Spring ISD’s board meeting, saying, “I recognize that there may be consequences associated with that choice.”

“But this is a thing that I am willing to stand on,” Adams continued. “We likely will be, at some point, compelled. But I did not want to go silently along with this. I wanted the people in Austin to know that you’re not going to see unanimous votes on this.”

The more teachers, librarians, administrators and trustees follow that example, the slower, more public, and more visible the damage of these laws will be. And the more we’ll see if the people who passed these laws can handle a real Texas fight.