As hard as we are fighting, book bans are having an impact on the books being written and published. To put this another way, a very small number of well-funded people who don't write books, don't teach books, don't work in libraries are trying to decide what books are available for everyone else
Are you planning on donating banned books to a little free library? You can use these inserts to increase the impact your donation has on the community:
Texas A&M Panel Feb 10
Tomorrow!! Can't wait for this All Star panel of writers joining me to talk free speech and academic freedom on the campus of Texas A&M. With @penamerica.bsky.social & @thefireorg.bsky.social !
With Sandra Cisneros, Jennifer Finney Boylan, George Packer, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall and Graham Piro.
Higher education should be a place where everyone is welcome, supported, and safe. But that vision is under threat and we must defend it — together. The Alliance is a new coalition protecting and promoting higher ed as a pillar of democracy. Joining the movement: allianceforhighered.org
There is no use in sugarcoating things. For higher education in America, 2025 was a year of catastrophe. Get all the details in PEN America's new report "America's Censored Campuses: Expanding the Web of Control" at: pen.org/report/ameri... #censorship #highereducation
Yesterday we @penamerica.bsky.social released a comprehensive study of government censorship of US higher ed in 2025.
We discuss:
- rampant educational gag orders & state laws
- weaponization of federal gov to control academic research and teaching
Highlights 👇
Quote by Jim McCarthy, Vice President at the literary agency Dystel, Goderich & Bourret in The Hill, discussing editors passing on LBGTQ+ content amid book bans and decreasing school library sales of queer content. Includes the PEN America logo.
Publishers are feeling the chill of the book banning movement and a second Trump presidency as literary agents note a more reserved atmosphere for publishing books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. More: https://thehill.com/homenews/lgbtq/5679251-trump-era-lgbtq-book-bans/
Both male and female horses have eyelashes. Unicorns don't exist so this can't be scientifically verified. Valiant use of taxpayer money to micromanage the acceptable eyelash representation of fictional animals.
News of clandestine book banning at Yosemite national Park. Against what else? A book about ecological decline with California waterways. Because this is somehow what the current admin opposes people learning about?
www.sfgate.com/national-par...
And here's Texas Tech. Alas, muzzling faculty at the whims of the president isn't just a violation of academic freedom and human decency. It's dangerous.
www.newsfromthestates.com/article/texa...
Mixed day for free speech in Texas higher ed
Texas Tech made a draconian policy that faculty can't teach about sex and gender unless it's to the letter of whatever the President says (!?)
But Texas State reinstated prof with pay, who was fired for an extramural speech share.google/bXV8TM11EQR2...
Removing To Kill a Mockingbird and The House on Mango Street from Texas classrooms does not protect Texas kids. The Texas GOP and Governor Abbott need to answer for this. Shameful.
www.fox7austin.com/news/leander...
In fact, I wrote about this very thing earlier this week for @penamerica.bsky.social .
share.google/Z5yc9SvhAkEc...
A victory for free speech. Now let's hope, as @jimmykimmel.com called for, people also raise their voices for other free speech, academic freedom, press freedom cases. For the ppl that don't have the same prominence. Lord knows there are enough of 'em!
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/b...
In fact, I wrote about this very thing earlier this week for @PENamerica .
share.google/oYH5fwopq8t9...
This is the offending monologue from @jimmykimmel.com , begins at the 2 minute mark. Watch the clip and ask yourself when did this become forbidden speech on American TV?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3Y...
State BOE Member Byrd recommended districts skip the review process and go right to removing every title on their shelves that has appeared on the state’s annual removal lists.
Well, it appears Volusia listened. Here are 10 of the disappeared titles we have been monitoring, now banned in Volusia.
I just shared this with Dr. Bhattacharya and colleagues...
My latest commentary, in @slj.com with @tasslyn.bsky.social on the Mahmoud v Taylor decision. These wonderful books -- and their authors -- deserved better.
"We would not expect schools to put Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in the sex education curriculum simply because it features a straight mom and dad. Why would Justice Gorsuch or others believe stories about families with two moms or two dads belong there?"
Last night, Hillsborough County Public Schools held its first school board meeting since letters from state officials ordered books off shelves.
Two parents made particularly poignant statements that must be heard.
You can watch the whole meeting here: www.hillsboroughschools.org/Page/6365
Talk about L is for LEAP. How “Pride Puppy!” - a children’s alphabet book - came to the center of a SCOTUS case w/ high stakes for access to books & education, involves "a pretty disturbing interpretation," says @robinstevenson.bsky.social. The "backlash is such evidence of need for these books."
“‘Aggressively revoking’ visas based on political ideology is a gross violation of basic free expression principles that anchor the academy,” @jonfreadom.bsky.social, PEN America's managing director of U.S. free expression, tells Inside Higher Ed www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...
A FL public library considering pulling out books about "life issues" to a separate section. Except it's defined so incredibly brutally it's basically books about any topic someone might want to censor.
Revoking Harvard's right to enroll international students is "a brazen escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the higher education sector... (that) reduces international students to pawns in a political game," says PEN America's @jonfreadom.bsky.social. pen.org/press-releas...
Trump's vile ban on foreign students at Harvard comes as an AP poll finds large majorities disapprove of his treatment of colleges. He's getting them to band together and he's making them *more* popular with the public.
On the pod, @jonfreadom.bsky.social explains:
newrepublic.com/article/1956...
Report from today’s hearing in the Middle District case PRH v. Gibson:
The state stuck to the argument that our libraries are “government speech” and students, parents, educators, authors, and publishers have no reasonable expectation to access particular ideas or to have their ideas endorsed.
South Carolina has voted to ban 10 more books in public schools statewide, raising the total to 22. This makes it the leading state for mandated book bans in every K-12 public school, replacing Utah, which currently has mandated bans on 18 books statewide. pen.org/press-releas...
This is among the more thinly- veiled censorship rationales I've seen in a while. NYC Mayor's office pressured City Parks Foundation to cancel Kehlani at SummerStage b/c of "the controversy" related to them being cancelled at Cornell... construed as a "safety" issue.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/n...
