Indiana to Legislate Book Bans for School Libraries

Indiana is the latest conservative state to fight back against inappropriate materials being available to students in classrooms and libraries. Republican legislators introduced House Bill 1195 to ban obscene content in school literature. To put it simply, this is a bill that would allow book bans in the state. This action followed a controversial vote by the board of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC) in Columbus, IN, which approved a book titled Push by the novelist Sapphire. During a meeting and the vote, parents lined up to deliver peaceful protests against having the book on the shelves, calling it violent and disturbing.

The board then passed a measure that prevents parents from keeping the title out of children’s hands. But it is in direct defiance of an Indiana law that already exists. Citing 2023 legislation that bans schools from making “obscene matter” available, Cindi Hajicek, the executive director of Purple for Parents United, said, “If we followed the letter of the law, we don’t need any other laws.”

A Different Perspective

The book Push is violent, and it includes graphic sexual details. The language – written in first person perspective – is both graphic and shocking.

The events are, however, based on students’ experiences that the author, Sapphire, heard as a remedial reading teacher in Harlem in the 1990s. She created a composite-character story that won accolades and literary awards.

Conservative alarm is not the only cause of book banning in the United States. Progressives ban books as well – though they tend to go after stories like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Little House on the Prairie, and To Kill a Mockingbird, claiming they are racist.

Indiana is not alone in the struggle to protect youngsters from accessing inappropriate material during library time. Utah’s HB 374, a law that bars sensitive materials from public schools, also covers Push. According to PEN America, other states are doing much the same:

“PEN America recorded 10,046 instances of book bans in the 2023-2024 school year. In the 2023-2024 school year, PEN America counted book bans in 29 states and 220 public school districts, with Florida and Iowa leading in number of bans.”

Age-Related Book Bans

David Harsanyi, a senior editor at The Federalist, wrote a piece on the banning of books after reading the PEN America report and concluded: “The preponderance of the books on the list feature sexually explicit scenes — and many have minority and gay characters because regrettably, so-called progressives have decided to teach kids that their immutable physical characteristics or sexuality or ‘gender expression’ define them, rather than their achievements and deeds.”

And that is precisely what parents are trying to convey to the progressives in charge of this nation’s education – educate, don’t indoctrinate. Save the sexual exploration and instruction for later in life and instead focus on STEM programs, literary classics, art, and music. Teach history with all its greatness and ugliness, emphasize merit, competition, and how to become a useful member of society.

1. Conservatives nationwide are working to ban books with obscene content from schools and libraries for kids.
2. Such a book ban is already technically in place in Indiana, but a new bill was introduced to clarify and reinforce it.
3. A school district in Indiana voted to forbid a book containing obscene sexual violence from being banned, which is what inspired the new bill.