Daily Archives: January 14, 2025

How the battle over book bans is playing out in North Texas schools

GRAPEVINE – After trying out many careers, from sales to a flight attendant, Donna Rayburn’s passion for reading led her to her calling: she went back to school to receive her certification to become a librarian. What followed was a career that spanned more than 20 years in North Texas schools — the last 13 in Grapevine. “As a child, I loved books, I loved words,” Rayburn said. “There was something in that space that made me feel so safe and comfortable.”Rayburn described a fulfilling career, with proud moments in which she helped students learn to love reading. But she said that positive experience changed in 2022 when the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD school board gave its elected trustees the power to block librarians from putting certain books on their shelves. “I felt like I wasn’t valued,” Rayburn said. “We as professionals know our community and the expectations, and that’s what we learned in library school.”Supporters of the new policy said it protected students from vulgar content — an argument that’s been used broadly by those who support restricting books from public school libraries. But for Rayburn, the policy felt political and personal. She was even called a “groomer” on an online community group. “My whole purpose was just to pass the passion of reading,” Rayburn said. “There was no indoctrination. There was no agenda.”GCISD did go on to change its policy, allowing a committee of parents and school staff to handle formal challenges to titles in school libraries. Still, Rayburn retired in 2023.In an emailed statement to the CBS Texas I-Team, the district wrote: 

“With the updates made to the policy in 2023, the district has communicated to our community and families that its purpose was to make the process more efficient and ensure that all stakeholders’ roles are clear — the Board of Trustees sets the policy; our professional educators use their expertise to acquire the appropriate resources for our students; and parents have a path to participate in decisions regarding their child’s access to resources.”

Donna Rayburn spent two decades as a school librarian in North Texas.

CBS News Texas

The move to ban certain books from school libraries isn’t unique to Grapevine. The American Library Association has tracked a national surge in book bans over the past several years, with Texas at the forefront. In 2023, it reported the number of books being challenged grew to 4,240. Top targets include “Sold,” a National Book Award finalist, “The Bluest Eye” by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” on which the award-winning film was based.The ALA said nearly half of the books challenged represent the voices of racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community, a perspective Rayburn said is needed.”These books help individuals understand themselves and how to cope,” Rayburn said.Shannon Ayres, a mother and a leader in the organization Citizens Defending Freedom in Collin County, pushed back against the idea that books about certain communities are being targeted. “I would say that if books that are geared towards the LGBTQ community have sexually explicit, graphic, play-by-play depictions of sex acts in it, then yes, we are targeting that book,” Ayres said. “But not because of the idea of the LGBTQ movement.”

Since 2021, Ayres has been one of the prominent local voices urging schools to reconsider the books on their library shelves. She said her activism with Citizens Defending Freedom began in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”A lot of parents were watching what their kids were learning in the classroom at home on Zoom,” Ayres said. “And I don’t think parents for the most part knew a lot of what was going on in the classroom.”In the past few years, Citizens Defending Freedom’s work has grown, with chapters in several states across the country. PEN America, a nonprofit focused on literature and freedom of expression, named Citizens Defending Freedom as one of three major advocacy groups prominent in the book ban movement.But Ayres pushes back on that characterization of her work.”We’re limiting access,” Ayres said. “And that’s what we’ve done as a society for a very long time.”

Since 2021, Shannon Ayres has been one of the prominent local voices urging schools to reconsider the books on their library shelves. 

CBS News Texas

School libraries in Texas came under greater scrutiny in 2023 with the passage of HB 900, a law written by Republican State Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco. The law prohibits school libraries from possessing books that are “sexually explicit” or “vulgar,” and it “recognizes that obscene content is not protected by the First Amendment.” Critics of the law, including Texas Library Association Executive Director Shirley Robinson, say the law’s language is too vague and has led librarians to self-censor out of fear of being out of compliance. 

“I think it’s a really dangerous place that we’re in because that law is so unclear and has been left open to interpretation,” Robinson said. “And different districts are treating it differently.”The I-Team requested lists of challenged books from more than 100 school district libraries in North Texas from August 2021 through March 2024. Twenty-nine districts reported one or more challenges involving 348 titles. More than a third had LGBTQ+ characters. For a list of challenged books, search the spreadsheet below. Click here for a list of North Texas district library book policies.The numbers don’t tell the full story because they don’t include all the books that may have been pulled by district librarians before a formal challenge was issued. They also don’t show how many books never make it onto shelves for fear they won’t align with the new state policy.On Tuesday, the new Texas Legislative session kicked off and State Rep. Fallon has already filed a new bill relating to school library books. HB 183 would give the State Board of Education the power to review and ban any book it deems inappropriate from school libraries statewide.   “This is not a new scenario,” Robinson said. “We’ve seen many times throughout history where books and ideas have been attacked.”CBS News Texas reached out to Rep. Fallon for comment but has not heard back yet.

Rayburn, who’s been retired for a year and a half now, still looks back at her two decades as a librarian fondly but said the politicization of education took the joy out of her job. “Politics has no business in education,” Rayburn said. “Any book that a person reads, you get a different perspective. You get to walk in someone else’s shoes. And with that, you learn so much. By that,t you learn empathy.”