By now, everyone is aware of “cancel culture,” or the current practice of marginalizing and/or silencing anyone who dares speak out against the progressive left’s prevailing dogma. But perhaps more ominous than the censorship of high-profile comedians and celebrities is the less-well-known effort to re-stock and re-catalog our nation’s library shelves.

The term “library decolonization” has been in use since about 2016. “Decolonizing the library” is a deliberate reference to the great age of exploration whereby Western civilization was spread around the globe by brave adventurers and explorers. The goal is to minimize access to classic works, not only by removing books from library shelves, but also by changing library cataloging practices, which will ensure that classic works are less likely to be read by casual inquirers. (See Decolonizing the Library of Congress in this issue of Education Reporter.)

As Phyllis Schlafly Eagles Researcher Gwen Kelley observes: “We're talking about the pornographic and racist books that are being added to libraries, but we have not paid so much attention to the fact that the woke left are censoring books that have been considered classic standards. They aren’t adding bookcases,” she notes, they’re adding bad books, but a child can't even choose a good book as an alternative because they’re being removed from the stacks. The woke left that screams about conservatives wanting to ban books is itself banning books and getting away with it.”

PJ Media Journalist Matt Margolis agrees. In an article published on PJ Media's website a year ago, Margolis wrote: “What the left doesn’t want you to know is that removing books from school libraries for sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate content is not book banning ... parents have every right to assess the appropriateness of content available to their kids in school without their supervision. Likewise, parents have every right to feel confident their children won’t be exposed to something harmful.”

Margolis adds: “As much as conservative parents might be inclined to prevent sexually explicit material in school, progressive parents are at least as inclined to want books ‘banned’ due to ‘racist content.’” He points out that the result is the removal from schools of classic novels like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men. “Obviously,” he writes, “these novels aren’t racist—quite the contrary. But as much as I know that good books have been and will continue to be pulled from school curricula for stupid reasons, I’d rather parents have the opportunity to scrutinize what their children are taught than be left powerless.

“After all, parents who want their children to read controversial books can still buy them. And that’s the difference between elected school boards making decisions about age-appropriate material and actual book banning.”

But common sense has never stopped the left from wailing and gnashing their teeth over alleged “book banning” by conservatives. Last September, a group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), introduced a resolution to keep explicit books in schools, claiming that removing inappropriate books is “an attack on First Amendment rights.” It’s unclear whether Raskin would have said the same about the removal of Huckleberry Finn or other American classics currently frowned upon by the left. The resolution was not enacted by the 117th Congress.

Sexually explicit and racist content is the problem

Parents Defending Education (PDE) Director of Outreach, Erika Sanzi, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that PDE does not support book bans, but agrees schoolchildren shouldn’t be subjected to sexually explicit content. She explained: “The fact that most school libraries don’t stock Art of the Deal does not mean the book is banned and the same goes for a book with sexually explicit illustrations and content deemed to be inappropriate in a K-12 setting.”

For years, the teachers’ unions and other leftist organizations have defended the indefensible: outright pornography on school library bookshelves, a topic Education Reporter has often covered. Some of the more egregious books have successfully been pulled from school libraries, but many more remain. A few of the most controversial titles include Gender Queer, an explicit book showing sex acts; This Book is Gay, an instruction on “the ins and outs of gay sex”; All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about racism and bullying, with descriptions of homosexual sex acts; Flamer, a graphic book about young boys performing sexual acts at a summer camp; and The Hate U Give, a novel about racism, police brutality, and leftwing activism.

Florida exposes book ban hoax

On March 8, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lashed out at the mainstream media, teachers’ unions, and leftist activists promoting the "book ban hoax" that Florida is emptying library bookshelves and using “political theater [to pretend] that Florida’s schools cannot teach about topics like African American History, including topics like slavery.”

In a press release, DeSantis praised his state’s “high-quality standards for required instruction of African American History, extensive African American History educational requirements in state law.” The press release refutes the “myths” that Florida’s commissioner of education, Manny Diaz, Jr., says are being disseminated by the left, chief of which is the claim that the state “has banned the instruction of African American History, including the discussion of slavery and the aftermath of slavery.”

The DeSantis administration contends that instruction about African American history “has only expanded,” and that legislation signed by the governor “ensures that Florida’s students learn about the 1920 Ocoee Election Day Riots in addition to requiring instruction on slavery, the Civil War, and Jim Crow laws.” Also included is instruction about African history prior to the development of black slavery, and continues through abolition and beyond.

Another myth being perpetrated by activists is that “Florida teachers could be committing a 3rd-degree felony by having books on ‘certain topics’ within their classrooms.” The DeSantis administration counters by clarifying that the state “has taken a stand against pornography and sexual material in the classroom. Statute 847.012 has been in law for many years and carries a felony penalty for the distribution of pornographic material to children.”

Rewriting the classics

A new trend for the cancel culture is the rewriting of classic and/or timeless literary works. While more iconic than “classic,” the James Bond book series, written in the 1950s and 1960s, is undergoing revision in order to remove “racially insensitive or racist references.” This effort comes on the heels of the announced rewrite of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and The Giant Peach, Matilda, and The BFG.

According to The Gateway Pundit, “so-called ‘sensitivity gurus’ hired by UK-based publisher Puffin are scrubbing legendary author Roald Dahl’s children’s books for new editions in order to avoid offending snowflake liberals. The changes are so drastic, few readers will recognize them from the original works.” The Pundit noted that President Biden fully embraced this attempt to cancel the famous author’s works, and added: “Hope you kept old Dahl classics for your children and grandchildren. The new editions will be an awful reading experience.”

Journalist Matt Vespa, Senior Editor at townhall.com, whose work appears on PJ Media and TownHall.com, acknowledges that “one doesn’t have to look far either on the internet or through study that [past] times were different. In many cases, it wasn’t for the best, especially for people of color, and yet there are numerous stories of these folks not only thriving but overcoming the societal obstacles that inhibited their growth. Many of these obstacles have been removed, and while progress has been achieved—this isn’t good enough for the Left, who need a perpetual state of cultural war to push these harsh ‘wartime’ orthodoxies they feel will bring unity.”

But rather than bringing unity, these orthodoxies are causing more division. The practice of viewing everything through a racial lens is cultivating more racism, while the pornographic literature activists deem fit for children gets not merely a pass but a vigorous nod.

Vespa writes that today’s woke snowflakes call for “book bans of classic literary works due to [the] vernacular at the time” and they “threaten all who don’t support this endeavor as being enablers of racism.” But “rewriting past works to be less offensive isn’t cultural sensitivity; it’s abject stupidity.”

An example of books the Left does promote is a new series about “inspiring women” that targets elementary school children. The problem is that at least one of these “women” is a biological male. Titled She Persisted: Rachel Levine by Lisa Bunker, the book will be released later this year. The inspiration for this series is Chelsea Clinton’s book series called She Persisted, and Rachel Levine is being touted as “the perfect choice for kids who love learning and teachers who want to bring inspiring women into their curriculum.” This book includes “a list of ways that readers can follow in Rachel Levine’s footsteps and make a difference!”

But as PJ Media's Matt Margolis writes:

• Not only was Levine put in his position solely for being transgender, but the Biden administration, obsessed with affirmative action picks and milestones, promoted Levine to be a four-star admiral of the U.S. Public Health Services (USPHS) Commissioned Corps and even dubbed him the first female four-star admiral even though he is a male. So not only is Levine a man who has been promoted for identifying as a woman, but he has also stolen opportunities from real women.


• Levine deserves no accolades; he is tainted by scandal from his time as Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary and has achieved notoriety for his awkward cultural appropriation of womanhood. Meanwhile, he uses his position to advance radical leftist gender theory and pushes for children to be drugged up and mutilated on the taxpayers’ dime.

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