The escalating red-state efforts to ban more books mark a new stage in the struggle to control the educational experience of America’s kaleidoscopically diverse younger generations. …
Though battles over access to controversial titles traditionally have been fought district by district, and even school by school, Republican-controlled states including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas are now pushing statewide rules that make it easier for critics to remove books they dislike from school libraries in every community. …
To the conservatives pushing this agenda, these new restrictions on libraries — like the parallel red-state laws limiting certain discussions in the classroom — are a means of protecting parental rights. … But to a wide array of civil rights, civil liberties and free expression groups, these restrictions represent an effort to enshrine the values of one particular group of parents — conservative Whites — over the priorities and experiences of an increasingly diverse society in which kids of color now compose a clear majority of the public school student body nationwide. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
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