PA House Proposes Legislation to Regulate Book Bans in Pennsylvania Schools

Pennsylvania ranks number one in the nation for banning books in its school districts

Photo bySusan Q YinonUnsplash

A Chester County Democrat is working to reign in the unprecedented number of book bans introduced in Pennsylvania schools. His intent is to "depoliticize" the school environment, which has been drawn into the nation's current culture wars over education. Pennsylvania currently leads the nation in the number of book bans that have been approved in its school districts.

In April of 2023, there were 456 bans across nine districts in Pennsylvania, with Central York School District leading the pack with 441 bans. The number has certainly grown since then.

PA Representative Paul Friel, of the 26th District, says his state House Bill 1506 could go a long way in meeting the concerns of parents' rights groups while also preserving the First Amendment rights of students.

“I wanted to put in place a mechanism that maybe helped to depoliticize it a bit and provide an avenue for parents who were disputing what’s going on in the school district in either direction,” Friel said.

A former president of the school board at Owen J. Roberts School District, Friel said he’s seen firsthand how social media fervor can lead to heated public comments about some books, regardless of whether what’s said about those books is true or even if they aren’t in that district’s library.

House Bill 1506 would set a standard review process for book challenges, set boundaries on reasons why a book can’t be removed, and codify a process for parents to opt their children out of lessons or library materials “that conflicts with their beliefs.”

School libraries have become a central point of controversy for the past two years in Pennsylvania, starting with a “book freeze” in the Central York School District that took hundreds of books about racism out of circulation that ended after community protests in 2021.

Last July, Central Bucks School District, the fourth largest in the state, passed the controversial Policy 109.2 after months of contentious meetings where public commenters and free speech groups warned it would lead to banning books about racism and LGBTQ issues.

The guidelines in Policy 109.2, developed with the outside help of a religious liberty law firm, the Independence Law Center, have since been adopted or considered by several districts across the state.

Book challenges have skyrocketed nationwide since then, the American Library Association has tracked thousands of book ban attempts across the country with many aimed at LGBTQ-themed books framed as pornographic material.

One side alleges that pornographic and obscene material is readily accessible to children of all ages and parents have a right to weed that material out. The other says bigoted fearmongering is seeking to silence voices in underserved communities and dismantle public education.

John Chrastka, executive director of the nonprofit EveryLibrary, said the bill would be a “wonderful” step toward balancing parental rights over content and a child’s right to read.

EveryLibrary is an organization that lobbies for support of public libraries across the country and Chrastka said HB 1506 is a unique response to censorship efforts seen in Pennsylvania and nationwide.

“I hope that the General Assembly pays attention to it, that the education community rallies around it and that parents understand that this is a rights-affirmative way to extend the role of the school library in educating students,” Chrastka said in a recent interview.

Several school districts in Pennsylvania are modeling their book banning policies after Central Bucks School District's Policy 109.2. This allows any resident of the school district to raise an issue with a book and gives the district broad discretion to remove it for explicit or implied depictions of "inappropriate content."

Those guidelines, often appearing as Policy 109.2, are mainly spearheaded by the Independence Law Center, the legal arm of the PA Family Institute.

PA Family lobbies for “traditional family values” and often opposes legislation that runs counter to Judeo-Christian beliefs, like anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTQ individuals.

The group is affiliated with the nationwide Family Research Council, designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Friel's bill could help prevent these outside politically affiliated groups from having a foothold in the book banning process.

Much of the spirit of Friel’s bill, the Freedom to Read Act, is couched in the landmark 1982 Supreme Court ruling between the Island Trees Union Free School District in New York vs. Stephen Pico.

In that case, the court ruled the objections by a group of parents over the content in some books did not supersede the free speech rights of every child in that district.

“Absolutely, a parent has the right to limit what their individual child has access to, they simply do not have the right to make that decision for other parents,” Friel said.