New Orleans        Book bans are a conservative cause du jour in many parts of the country.  PEN America reports that there were over 12,000 books that were banned in public schools in 2025.  Texas and Florida are at the top of the leader board in this new censorship movement.  School administrators on the chopping block are swinging a dull axe at the restrictions using algorithms to sort out the offending volumes.

Curiously, the leading offender has been Stephen King, the highly successful best-selling author of countless thrillers.  He’s been pulled off the shelves 312 times with the Shining and the Green Mile, the biggest offenders.  Not sure why?  He’s hardly a political writer to my knowledge.  I only know Jack Nicholson and the gang in the “Shining” movie, and it does scare the bejesus out of you, but hardly threatens American values and culture.  There’s also no love for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which is pretty political, but not for the usual LGBQT reasons that get the right so riled.  Another popular target is a book that features a young woman who was sex trafficked.  I guess the right doesn’t want youngsters to know that this can happen? The mystery embedded in this campaign to me is the notion in internet age that anyone can stop almost anyone else from accessing almost any book that they might want to see.  Taking a book out of the school library might remove an “attractive nuisance,” but any youngster whose interest is piqued by the ban can get the book fairly easily with a little pursuit.

Of course, school libraries are just one of the targets of the book ban people.  A number of red states have launched attacks on books in public libraries, presuming to protect not only youngsters but the rest of us from reading something they find controversial.  Arkansas is among the states that has taken a blunt instrument after books by trying to hold librarians themselves as criminally responsible for ordering or shelving a book they don’t like.

Local 100 has been supporting organizing drives at the network of libraries that are part of the Central Arkansas Library Systems (CALS), as well as others around the state in Fayetteville, Benton, North Little Rock, and beyond.  Librarians are justly concerned that they are being politically targeted by biased and subjective standards that are impossible to decipher.  Organizations of librarians responded to the union’s call for help.  Responding to these concerns, members petitioned the CALS board to determine if any of the librarians would be legally protected and defended by CALS, if targeted under the act. With some pride and relief,  the CALS board responded in the affirmative.  Librarians are talking about organizing a statewide council to protect their interests and that of their colleagues, and it makes good sense.

Targeting the messenger is crazy.  If you don’t like the book, don’t borrow or buy it, but keep your nose out of your neighbor’s business.  How is freedom of speech not a universal value that trumps right and left?  Librarians are now the gatekeepers for common sense on this issue around the country and they need our support.