Texas GOP's Book Bans Are the First Step in Anti-Public Education Crusade

Banned books on display at progressive Austin bookshop Reverie Books (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Austin kids are different from those raised elsewhere, in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways. Stephanie Erlewine has four of them, the oldest being Mia, 14, and Ani, 12.

"They are definitely typical Austin kids," Erlewine said. "They're informed, opinionated, and have expensive tastes – ha! They are also typical Gen Z: They love Nineties music and David Bowie, they don't hesitate to call out people who are being politically incorrect, and they make a stand when given the opportunity."

Mia and Ani have been active members of Lamar Middle School's GSA Club (it stands for Gay-Straight Alliance). Mia finished her time at Lamar in May and will be moving on to LASA, the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, in August. She plans to join the robotics club and to eventually become an astronaut and design space rovers. She loves math and science – and books.

Mia said the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen – removed from some Tennessee school libraries – is important to her. It was a gift from her dad, and something she could relate to. The book follows a 13-year-old boy whose parents are divorced, like Mia's. When the plane he takes to see his dad crashes, all he has to survive is a hatchet his mother gave him.

Ani will be a seventh-grader at Lamar this year and enjoys acting, costume design, and the art of makeup. Ani wants to be a theatre director some day. "This Book Is Gay was very helpful in my life. ... It helped me learn self-love, to not let others judge you based on your appearance, and how you as a person can help others. The book talks about accepting yourself and knowing that you are not alone."

This Book Is Gay is something of an LGBTQ manual – a guidebook for young people discovering their gender and sexual identities. It has chapters on queer identities, the coming out process, homophobia, and the mechanics of gay sex. And, of course, it is controversial among conservative Repub­lic­ans. According to the American Library Association, This Book Is Gay was the 10th-most banned book of 2022. Hatchet has also been banned in Texas school districts for a scene in which the protagonist recalls his mother cheating on his father. The books are among hundreds that have been challenged in the last two years, as criticisms of books in schools surge. PEN America, the prominent anti-censorship group, estimates that 1,648 books were banned nationwide from July 2021 to June 2022. The group says the challenged books often address the kinds of issues that young people deal with as they transition into adulthood – sexuality, racism, mental health, and physical and emotional abuse.

The book bans are a relatively recent obsession of the far right and have followed their previous crusades against mask mandates and the accurate teaching of race. They are characterized by loud, lurid, and comically exaggerated allegations. Parents complain, most often, of "pornography" in school libraries. They accuse teachers of "grooming" children for sex. They have, at times, subjected librarians and school board trustees to threats, including death threats.

In response, schools have taken books off the shelves. In 2021, a Leander parent waved a pink dildo to protest the availability of Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, a memoir about queer domestic violence. Leander ISD, just north of Austin, went on to remove 15 books from the school library. In November 2022, Keller ISD, outside Dallas, banned all books mentioning gender fluidity, after having banned dozens of other books months earlier. Frisco ISD, north of Plano, began a review last August of an estimated 1 million titles, reportedly allocating $387,000 to begin the process. According to PEN America, there were 438 new book bans undertaken in Texas in the fall of 2022 – the most in the nation. The books removed have included Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, and the Bible.

Frank Strong teaches senior English composition at KIPP charter school in South Austin. He says the bans target some of his students' most beloved books. "A lot of these books are coming-of-age narratives – memoirs or novels – which is something that's really useful to read when you're 16, 17, 18 years old," Strong said.

"But part of coming of age is coming to terms with sex or sexuality. And so a lot of these books might also have a sex scene in them or, depending on the narrator, they might have scenes of trauma – which is a thing that people really deal with. So when you take books like that off of the library shelves, or make it impossible for teachers to assign them, you're really, really limiting the ways students can see themselves reflected and explore the things that are happening in the world around them."

Book Banning Is Christian Nationalism

Gov. Greg Abbott claims to agree with conservative parents that Texas libraries contain pornographic books. "Some schools have books with sexually explicit and vulgar materials," he said on June 12, at a signing ceremony for a new statewide book banning bill, House Bill 900. He added, "I'm signing a law that gets that trash out of our schools."

HB 900 will force businesses that sell books to school libraries, known as "vendors," to rate those that contain sex scenes, beginning no later than April 1.* Throughout the just-­concluded legislative session, librarians, teachers, and public school administrators pleaded with lawmakers to reject HB 900, saying that forcing vendors to rate books will cause them to simply stop selling any books to Texas libraries. They were steamrolled by Republicans, including Sen. Angela Paxton, wife of impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton, who carried HB 900 in the Senate. She, too, has claimed there is pornography in school libraries and agreed not to change the wording set by House Republicans in HB 900, to ensure the bill's swift passage. It was approved 19-12, with every Senate Democrat voting against it.

Tara Lane Bowman, a librarian at Lamar Middle School, worries about the effect HB 900 will have on school libraries. "I am highly concerned that there will be some vendors who will say, 'Texas is too hot to touch. We don't need to sell there,'" Bowman said. "And I have to emphasize that, up until now, in Austin ISD and across the state, parents have always had the right to decide what they want their child to read or not read – that has never been a question. So what we're dealing with now is a solution in search of a problem."

Hatchet and This Book Is Gay have both been the target of bans, and they've both had important impacts in the lives of Lamar middle schoolers Mia and Ani

Bowman told us that she knows which books resonate with kids. She mentioned Drama by Raina Telgemeier, a coming-of-age story about friendship and teamwork that presents LGBTQ relationships as normal. We also heard about The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky, which addresses issues of drug use and sexuality, and Looking for Alaska by John Green, a novel examining grief, peer groups, and intimacy. These books are widely regarded as classics of juvenile literature, but each has been among the most banned books of the last decade.

Bowman also praised The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, a book reviled by conservatives for its analysis of race. "It is such a complicated and layered book and students have told me that it makes them think differently about things," Bowman said. "In the book, the main character is targeted by security officers on her campus and she feels, rightly or wrongly, that it has to do with her skin color. It's something that gets the kids thinking. It's something that's happening in their world."

HB 900 was one of several education-­related bills sponsored by Republicans this legislative session that critics argued would hurt public education. Most did not pass. The one that got the most attention would have taken money from public education and given it to parents to pay for tuition in private schools. Another would have forced public schools to display the Ten Com­mand­ments in every state classroom; yet another would have forbidden educators from ever mentioning LGBTQ identities to students.

Chris Tackett, a former school board trustee of Granbury ISD outside Fort Worth, has become an important advocate for public education by identifying the people who create and push these bills. These people were once generally referred to as evan­gel­ical Christians. Today, there's a different term, Tackett said: Christian nationalists.

"Christian nationalists believe we should be living biblical values at all times," Tackett said. "These same people – and surveys show it – also tend to have views that are more homophobic. Racism comes into that space. The rejection of expertise comes into that space – talking about things like university professors or masking up, when you have a pandemic. And they tend to lean toward more authoritarian-style tactics – power above all else."

Christian nationalists have sought for decades to force Christian prayer and Bible study into public classrooms. While they were once just one element of the Texas Republican Party, today they occupy its center. So, Tackett said, party leaders like Abbott, who for years refused to support vouchers, are now committed to the proposal and other initiatives that undermine public education.

"The book bans are part of a larger narrative," Tackett said. "They are part of the push by Christian nationalists to devalue the way public schools are seen in local communities. It is all designed to make people scared of what's in schools – what's being taught, what's in the libraries – so that they can go in and push for vouchers."

After Abbott signed HB 900 on June 12, he handed the pen to Mandy Drogin, a campaign director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation. TPPF is the group that, more than any other, has worked to destabilize public education in Texas over the last 30 years. In that time, TPPF has authored and introduced voucher bills and bills that would allow taxpayer money to subsidize private religious schools. The group had a major success in 1995 when it helped convince Texas legislators to allow the adoption of charter schools.

It's telling that the vice chair of the TPPF Board is West Texas billionaire Tim Dunn. He and fellow billionaire Farris Wilks have funded a variety of conservative, education-­focused entities. Dunn and Wilks are oilmen and part-time preachers who reject the separation of church and state and want to see Christian dogma taught in public schools. They are also among the largest Republican donors in the state and are widely understood to be a major force pushing Texas Republicans to the right.

But the book banning movement is much bigger than Dunn, Wilks, and TPPF. "In these extreme, Christian nationalist, conservative circles, it's coming from all directions," Tackett said. "There are groups like Moms for Liberty, which has chapters here in Texas and is operating chapters in Florida, and up and down the East Coast. And there's the big, mega-evangelical churches – you'll hear them talk in sermons about the bad books that are in public school libraries.

"So I use this phrase: 'See it, name it, fight it.' Because I think most people don't see it yet. They're trying to fight it without really understanding what they're fighting. And I think you have to come to grips with the idea that this is an ideology itself, which has all of these tendrils that come out of it. The only way for us to beat it is education, mobilization, and showing up to vote – and understanding what you're voting for and against."

The Rules: Organize and Inform

The book bans go hand in hand with another obsession of the far right – the effort to destroy LGBTQ rights. Republicans had a victory in this area last session with the passage of Senate Bill 14, which prohibits gender affirming care – puberty blockers and hormone therapy – for trans kids. However, on June 20, a U.S. District Court judge overturned Alabama's law against gender affirming care, which is quite similar to SB 14. Judge James Moody Jr. wrote that gender affirming care "improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the State undermined the interests it claims to be advancing."

Bowman is deeply concerned at how Republicans are using children as cannon fodder in the culture wars. "Our students are getting really bullied by our Legislature from all levels," Bowman said. "I have a great concern for the community that I know has always viewed Austin as a safe space. Because I don't know if we can be that safe space anymore."

With the increasing attacks on students and schools, educators like Bowman and Strong are abandoning their traditional silence on politics and speaking out. Strong publishes an unabashedly political document called "The Book-Loving Texan's Guide to School Board Elections." It examines the candidates that support book bans and oppose LGBTQ rights in school board races across the state.

Knowing the struggle that is raging in school districts such as Southlake, Katy, Grapevine-Colleyville – and even Round Rock, Leander, and Dripping Springs – Bowman is grateful to work here, in Austin's liberal oasis. "This is actually one of the reasons I work in Austin ISD, because they and the trustees have supported us with robust book challenge policies," Bowman said. "You can't just say, 'Oh, I'd like you to take a whole list of books off every shelf in the district.' It's always been a campus-level decision. We've always emphasized to parents that they have a right to do what they want for their individual child. And the community in general is supportive of books and of literacy. I don't know if I would find that anywhere else."

Strong points out that banning books and attacking vulnerable students aren't actually popular positions, but book-banning candidates win because they have fundraising advantages and because voters don't know who they are. "The rules for defeating pro-censorship candidates are simple: organize and inform," Strong says. "Last fall gave us many more examples of outstanding community groups doing great work to combat the better-funded, more-established PACs on the anti-inclusion side. ... If there's a [progressive] group like that in your community, join it now. If there's not, start one. Reach out to the leaders of successful groups to learn how."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the deadline for businesses that sell books to school libraries to comply with new HB 900 rules requiring them to compile a list of material rated as “sexually explicit material or sexually relevant material”; vendors have until April 1, 2024 (not January 1) to submit these lists.