In the leaked recording, he’s heard saying “I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women and there are women that think they’re men. I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries.” The ACLU filed a complaint in July on the basis that his orders violate Title IX, a federal law that protects students from being discriminated against based on gender or sexual orientation. The director of free expression and education at PEN America, Jonathan Friedman, has tracked thousands of book bans and has said “It’s not uncommon to see people explicitly saying that they want to remove LGBTQ books because they believe they are indoctrinating students.” The book removals and complaints have taken their toll on marginalized students. Lou Whiting, a nonbinary student at Granbury High School who has organized protests in the past, said that they felt unsafe at school, but the federal investigation brings hope: “It’s just really good to hear that there are people who are listening to us and actually doing something about it. It means a lot to hear that our efforts meant something.” Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.
