Censorship, book challenges and book bans in classrooms and school libraries have been building in recent years. In Iowa, two laws have passed that are designed to make it easier to have books removed from schools. The first was in 2021— a bill banning the teaching of so called “divisive concepts” in Iowa’s schools — concepts including the ideas that an individual could be unconsciously racist or sexist and that the US or Iowa are systemically racist or sexist.
The second bill came this year, and it requires that Iowa schools remove any book describing or visually depicting a sex act within the next year. That bill also prohibits teachers from offering any curriculum or instruction that relates to sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through sixth grade. That prohibition will also limit the books that Iowa kids will have access to in school. On this episode of Talk of Iowa, advocates and educators discuss book bans and challenges in Iowa and beyond and how these laws are already changing Iowa’s classrooms.
Guests:
- Jack Alden, recent graduate from West High School in Iowa City, West Side Story contributor
- Ali Borger Germann, language arts teacher, City High School in Iowa City
- Kasey Meehan, director of Freedom to Read with PEN America
- Sara Hayden Parris, founder and president of Annie's Foundation
