When I was in elementary school my district had a program called AR. Basically it was a program where certain books were worth different amounts of points based on quizzes you took over them. My school had a way of rewarding people for reading based on their points. We had parties, more specifically pizza parties. I always made it to the AR pizza parties. There were only ever four or five of us who did the reading and made it though, and it was always the same few of us. Even years ago reading was dying. I can only imagine how much worse it’s become, especially with how hard Texas lawmakers are trying to escalate the situation. Texas Senate Bill 13(SB 13) was put into effect Sept. 1. The bill gives parents, school boards, and the government more control over the library materials available to their students. SB 13 limits the power of school librarians by essentially making it an easier process for these institutions to veto whatever books they disagree with.
Maybe I could get behind the bill if it weren’t so clearly targeted. If the goal were to actually keep students reading age appropriate content this would be a different argument, but statistics don’t lie. According to a study done by the American Library Association (ALA), of 1,247 demands to remove books 47% of those books were LGBTQIA or Black, Indigenous, or People of Color(BIPOC) stories. As a senior, I enjoy reading queer or BIPOC books. Diversity is what makes reading fun. I don’t want to read books with only straight characters or white characters. I read to take my mind off of the stress of my life. Why would I want to read books with characters only exactly like me?
I want books that teach lessons and have real meaning behind them. I want books with diversity that tell stories different from what I know and have experienced. Taking that away is just wrong. Censorship like this makes books lose all meaning and it robs students of their choices. Even as an avid reader, I hate having to read what I’m told to in school. That takes away all of the fun in my choice. And, if a student who loves to read feels that way it’s only fair to assume that students who don’t, feel it even more so. Instead of limiting what students have access to, schools should be grateful some of their students still even enjoy reading and that they even know how.
The bill isn’t about protecting students, it’s about controlling what they have access to, and sadly they can now take whatever they feel shouldn’t be read right out of students’ reach. The ALA also puts out a list of the top 10 banned books every year. According to the data from their 2024 list, 72% of the demands for censorship in schools and public libraries came straight from officials, administrators, and board members. It was majorly those in charge, not those who actually sat to read any of those books.
Additionally, why kick a dog that’s already down? The literacy rate in Texas is already going downhill. According to World Population Review, Texas has the fourth lowest literacy rate in the country. 19% of adults in the country lack basic English prose comprehension skills. If parents can’t read then they aren’t giving good examples to their children or teaching them how important this skill is. This means that the percentage of illiterate Texans will only grow. Censoring an already dwindling literate population is probably not the smartest idea.
From some parents’ perspective I could see how eliminating choice could be a good thing, but as a student this is detrimental. Not all parents have the same rules or expectations for their children. Some parents are more strict than others. What is and what is not acceptable changes throughout each household. One parent could, for example, not want their child reading anything queer at all. So they make an argument and get a book removed entirely. That doesn’t just remove that book from that one specific child. It removes it from everyone in the school. This new system allows for bias to take over the decision making process.
The state of Texas is making a huge mistake. They’re focusing so hard on how they can keep things out of the youth’s hands that they don’t care whether or not people still read at all. By taking everything they don’t agree with away, they are discouraging reading in the younger generations and indirectly lowering literacy rates in the state. On top of that, it is well within students First Amendment rights to have free access to information and ideas. This bill, and others Texas has passed, allow for viewpoint discrimination. Viewpoint discrimination is illegal and occurs when the government clearly likes or dislikes a speaker’s message.
The government cannot legally discriminate what publishers sell to schools based on their political standpoints or policies, except under this bill they essentially can. A better option than illegally restricting what students read could be as easy as what my previous middle school was doing. At the school students had higher level books, but instead of barring every student from reading them because of one parent, if a student wanted to read higher they needed a permission slip signed by their parent or guardian giving them explicit permission to read those books. This option allows for each parent to decide what their child should read based on their parenting preferences while also keeping that option open for others.
Most high school students are 16 or older- we drive cars, we work, we date, and many of us even vote. We shouldn’t have our options taken away because a small group of adults has different views than another.
