Photo by FabrikaCr - Getty Images
Books from above
The Wisconsin GOP legislature introduced a bill in October that would require libraries to notify parents about what books their children are checking out. If passed, SB597 would mean parents of children 16 and under will receive alerts within 24 hours every time their kid checks out a book from a public or school library. While current law already allows library records to be disclosed to parents upon request, this proposed law would do so automatically.
Civil rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) oppose this bill on grounds that it would perpetuate unnecessary, excessive surveillance and control over children’s imagination and curiosity.
ACLU policy analyst Jon McCray Jones explains that it creates a chilling effect on young peoples’ lives. “The point is to get parents to start challenging books more on specific materials. This new bill is very in-line with all the other book banning attempts and censorship of information we’ve seen from state bills like AB510 and other ones across the nation.”
The concerns about books that GOP legislators often espouse pertain to topics like gender and sexuality but also race, diversity and health issues. The truth is children often go to libraries to access valuable information that their parents either do not have or do not want them to have. “Some parents don’t want their kids reading about things like evolution or dinosaurs because it goes against their Christian values,” McCray Jones gives for example.
Closing Minds?
It is important to recognize that this library bill does not exist in a vacuum. While framed as innocently expanding parents’ involvement in their kids’ lives, it falls in tandem with another state bill proposed earlier this year that would require kids to have permission from their parents to use social media platforms as well as enact a social media curfew, as reported by PBS Wisconsin. Utah and Arkansas have already signed similar bills into law.
According to WMTV, Wisconsin Democratic Senator LaTonya Johnson brought up a point during the bill’s debate that children do not have to check out books in order to still read them at the library. McCray Jones adds, “If you police kids’ access to books and conversations, you basically halt their ability to open their minds up to new ideas that help them understand the world and challenge the status quo.”
|
|
He additionally highlights the particular threat that this bill presents to LGBTQ+ youth. “If a kid belongs to a household where the only place they have access to information about things like puberty or queerness is the library, and the library alerts the parents that they’re reading about these topics, it could potentially out the kid to their family and put them in danger of homelessness or abuse or having to repress themselves to stay safe.”
