Tennessee library board meets to weigh firing librarian who refused LGBTQ+ book purge

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/politics/states/tennessee-library-disciplinary-hearing

Love this: "The Forbidden Words Quilt, led by Lorraine Woodruff-Long and Patricia Hickey, is a community quilt project launched in August 2025 and completed in 2026 with contributions from 195 quilters from all 50 U.S. states and D.C. and 5 countries. The quilt features 384 words and phrases identified by #PENAmerica.org [@penamerica] that are among the growing list of words being scrubbed from government websites and documents and flagged for review by federal agencies."
https://mailchi.mp/quiltinginthefog/july2024-6423127#mctoc1

h/t @lschiff

#BannedWords #Censorship #DefendResearch #Quilts #Quilting #Trump #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics

CECOT story pulled by Bari Weiss gets viewed anyway thanks to Canadian streaming service

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/news/cecot-story-goes-viral-online

Tennessee whistleblower says library board chair sought private data as part of state's book purge

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/news/tennessee-library-books-purge

North Carolina county dissolves library board for refusing to toss book about a trans kid

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/news/north-carolina-library-dissolved-transgender

Freedom to Read Advocates Sound Alarm on Plan to Review Library Collections

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett demand that public libraries review their collections for “age-appropriateness” and for compliance with a controversial Trump executive order on gender identity.
https://publishingperspectives.com/2025/11/freedom-to-read-advocates-sound-alarm-on-plan-to-review-library-collections/

#EveryLibrary #JohnChrastka #PENAmerica #Tennessee #TreHargett

Southern states ban transgender books from YA and children's sections in libraries

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/politics/alabama-tennessee-transgender-books-libraries

New Florida Curriculum on Communism is a “Dangerous Recasting” of McCarthyism – PEN America

New Florida Curriculum on Communism is a “Dangerous Recasting” of McCarthyism

Education Should Champion Diverse Perspectives, Not Impose a Rigid Set of Beliefs

Educational Censorship U.S. Free Expression

November 17, 2025

(MIAMI)— PEN America today criticized Florida’s new social studies standards that established a unit on “The History of Communism” for grades 6-12, calling it a “dangerous recasting” of McCarthyism as patriotism.

PEN America Florida Director William Johnson said: “This new unit is a dangerous recasting of McCarthyism as patriotism and dissent as ‘un-American.’ Florida’s new standards impose a single, rigid set of beliefs such as criticizing communism, when education should champion the exploration of diverse perspectives. A classroom should be a place where ideas meet, not where ideology reigns.”

The Florida Department of Education, which adopted the standards last week, had said the new unit on communism was a response to a “resurgence of communist ideologies across the United States and throughout the world,” noting “it is more important than ever for students to understand the catastrophic failures and human suffering caused by communist regimes.” 

Historians quoted in the Tampa Bay Times called this new standard “skewed,” “highly biased,” and reflecting a resurgence of Cold War-era propaganda.

The new social studies standards stem from state Senate Bill 1264, “History of Communism,” passed in 2024. PEN America has described bills like this one as “delineating what viewpoints must be taught in such a manner as to potentially restrict educators’ professional discretion, and impose an ideological constraint on the freedom to learn.” Given Governor DeSantis’s prior statements about the “evils of communism,” these standards are likely to chill the speech of educators and compel them to only discuss certain viewpoints.

In 2023, the state Board of Education approved African American history standards that required educators to teach that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The standards were widely criticized as a defense of slavery.

Editor’s Note: The featured image at top by WP AI.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: New Florida Curriculum on Communism is a “Dangerous Recasting” of McCarthyism – PEN America

#communism #curriculum #dangerous #educationalCensorship #florida #mccarthyism #noRigidBeliefs #notDiverse #penAmerica #socialStudies #uSFreeExpression