The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on book bans Tuesday morning, following a school year where Texas led the nation in number of books banned.
Some parents and local organizations object to books they see as too sexually explicit, “pornographic,” or offensive for a variety of reasons, said Kasey Meehan, PEN America’s Freedom to Read program director.
“There’s a network of well organized groups across Texas that use different social media platforms and web pages to share strategies and tactics and lists of books to ban,” Meehan said.of roughly 850 books to Texas school districts asking about their availability to students. The list prompted parents to challenge and successfully ban books they deemed inappropriate.
Texas saw 801 bans across 22 districts between July 2021 and June 2022. Florida, in second place, saw 566 bans across 21 districts. “Because everything is bigger in Texas, my home state is leading the nation in book bans and has attempted to censor the most books in the U.S.,” Cameron Samuels of Katy, Texas, co-founder of
, said ahead of testifying at the Senate hearing. “This censorship seeks to suppress and silence the most vulnerable students.”Students of color and students within the LGBTQ community need to see themselves represented in literature, said Samuels, a resident of Katy, near Houston, who studies at Brandeis University.
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