(kids chattering) (troubled music) (parents chattering) - I am in favor of moving books out of a children's section that are inappropriate sexually.

- It is a parent's decision what their child is going to be reading.

- Now, this is a book that is taught at Georgetown Day School.

- [Lee] There's an ongoing partisan debate over what books kids should and shouldn't have access to.

- In order to understand how these obscene books made their way into our public libraries, one must understand the communist connection.

- Exposing children to sexually explicit materials is not education, it's abuse.

- [Lee] Over the last several years, parents and a network of organized conservative groups have put pressure on school and library boards across the country to remove certain books from their collections.

- Sir, listen.

- Step out.

- [Lee] Claiming they're housing pornographic material.

- But this is totally inappropriate for K to 2 students to be discussing this with anybody but their parents.

- [Lee] Many of the targeted titles feature LGBTQ and other minority characters.

A lot of these books are beloved by young adult readers who want to see themselves reflected in literature.

- [Max] By taking those books away, it's removing that safe outlet I might have at a library.

And I don't think that's fair.

- [Lee] But critics of these titles label them as obscene or inappropriate for kids.

- Public schools have become the principal place of sexualizing children in our society.

It's not the cellphone, it's not social media, it's the schools.

- [Moderator] Sit down now.

- [Lee] This movement to restrict what books kids and teens can read is playing out in both public schools and community libraries.

And state lawmakers have passed legislation that validates these efforts.

Elected officials in places like Florida, Arkansas, Texas, and here in Indiana have enacted laws that make it easier for community members to request book removals or ban certain types of content from schools.

And several of these laws make it a crime for educators or librarians to provide certain material to kids.

And some candidates for elected office are also running on this issue.

- This is what I will do with the grooming books when I become secretary of state.

(upbeat music) ♪ Let's go ooh ah ♪ ♪ Mm, welcome to the main event ♪ ♪ Applying pressure but I promise ♪ - Ranking Member Bonamici and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

- [Lee] Jonathan Friedman is with Pen America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression.

He says these censorship efforts targeting schools and libraries and the state laws that support them is unlike anything we've seen before.

- This has combined to make this really, I would say, the most unprecedented movement to censor education, you know, in memory.

- Wow, that's quite a statement.

In 2023, Indiana's governor signed a bill that made two sweeping changes.

First, it's easier for community members to request the removal of books from schools they believe are inappropriate.

- Parents, caregivers, teachers, and school personnel, along with librarians, school board members, and library board members have contacted legislators for years about materials in the school that they consider sexually explicit and harmful.

- [Lee] The second thing it does is take away a legal defense for educators charged with providing harmful material to students.

Indiana already has a decades-old law that defines harmful material to a minor in four ways.

It represents sexual conduct in any form, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors, it is patently offensive to prevailing community standards, and it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

So if a teacher or school librarian provides a student with a book their parent believes is harmful and a prosecutor agrees, they could be charged with a crime.

And now they can't use the book's educational value to defend themselves because the 2023 law removed that defense.

Indiana Republican Senator Jim Tomes was the initial author of this legislation.

- These pictures in these books are absolutely raw pornography.

- [Lee] He says he's been hearing about porn in schools for years.

- These are pornographic books, something you would see probably in adult bookstores.

- [Lee] Tomes later showed me three examples of what he says are pornographic books found in schools.

They include the graphic sex education novel "Let's talk About It," as well as a young adult novel called "All The Rage," and the graphic memoir "Gender Queer."

Members of Congress have also expressed concerns about pornographic content in schools and libraries.

Here's Republican US Senator John Kennedy reading an excerpt from "Gender Queer."

- "I got a new strap-on harness today.

I can't wait to put it on you.

It will fit my favorite dildo perfectly.

You're going to look so hot."

- [Lee] Critics of censorship efforts say that restricting access to books by and about LGBTQ and other marginalized identities is harmful to young people who may already feel unrepresented in literature, and that many of the targeted titles taken as a whole have literary value.

- My name's Maia Kobabe.

I'm the author of "Gender Queer: A Memoir," one of the most banned books in America.

First thing I would say is please read it before you judge it.

If I'd had a book to read like this, specifically when I was like a freshman in high school, it would've saved me years of questioning and confusion about my identity.

- [Lee] According to Pen America, state legislation like Indiana's 2023 law provides support to censorship efforts and contributes to the surge in book bans in public schools.

The group has documented nearly 6,000 instances of book bans in 41 states and 247 public school districts over a two year period.

37% of the banned books included characters of color or themes of race and racism.

And 36% included LGBTQ characters or themes.

Jonathan Friedman says that while the Indiana law doesn't ban specific types of content from schools, it creates a sense of fear and anxiety among educators.

- It's very clear that this effort to put pressure on school districts to account for everything that they have is an effort at intimidation.

Now, no one is telling them, you better not have X book, or Y book, or books with sexual content on the shelves, but it's clear that that kind of material is going to be targeted and that the law that has passed is going to enable the targeting of that kind of content.

- I told Tomes about concerns that this law he advocated for could have a chilling effect on the types of books educators keep in schools, including young adult books with depictions of sex or two characters of the same gender who are in a relationship.

So there's a fear that this legislation is going to lead to the removal of books like that, either because parents complain about them or because educators worry that they'll get in trouble for including those types of books in their collections.

- Well, maybe they should worry.

Maybe educators should worry they're doing it.

Maybe it should have the chilling effect if it's going to put these kind of books in the hands of a minor or child.

- [Lee] This targeting of books by and about people of color and LGBTQ individuals prompted Indianapolis author Leah Johnson to open her own bookstore, which highlights frequently banned titles.

(drill whirring) And her mother, Democrat Indiana State Representative Renee Pack, fought against Indiana's book restriction law.

She explained to her colleagues in the House what it was like for her daughter to grow up without seeing queer characters in literature.

- She said, "Mom, it was horrible."

Yes, it's my daughter.

"It was horrible and confusing growing up and not seeing me and who I was represented in literature."

- And in retrospect, I can identify that not having books that reflected my experience did deeply change the way I thought about myself and my position in the world.

- [Lee] Johnson is now trying to fill that gap by writing stories about queer Black girls.

Her debut young adult novel, "You Should See Me in a Crown," follows the story of a Black queer high school girl from Indiana who ends up falling for the new girl at school while both of them are running for prom queen.

The book received critical acclaim and was named one of the 100 Best Young Adult Books by Time Magazine, but it was also 1 of about 50 titles that were put under investigation by the Oklahoma attorney general because of complaints that they contained obscene material.

- I just wanted to tell a true story about queer kids because that's the kind of thing that I wish that I had had when I was a teenager.

And so there's no content in the book that could even realistically be viewed as obscene except for the fact that it is queer.

And to a lot of people, queerness is inherently obscene.

- [Lee] The Oklahoma attorney general dropped the investigation, but for Johnson, the current surge in book challenges and the state laws that support them are an existential threat.

- It's not about the removal of books from shelves, it's about the removal of queer people from public life.

And I think that's crucial to state.

It's not really about the work.

It's about making queer people ashamed, and afraid, and driving them back into the closet.

- [Lee] Indiana's law has also sparked worry among librarians.

Johnson's former school librarian, Diane Rogers, is the president of the Indiana Library Federation.

She's made it a point to stock her shelves with a diverse range of literature.

Rogers doesn't understand why some Republican lawmakers think obscene material is widespread in schools and libraries.

- Inherent within that passing or putting forth that legislation is a belief that we are doing something harmful, that we intend to do something bad for children.

And that's absolutely the antithesis of what the vast majority of educators are.

- [Lee] Do you have anything in this collection that could potentially fall under the category of obscene or harmful as defined by Indiana law?

- I have never had items that would be considered obscene by law in my collection.

And I vehemently state that.

Do I have books that someone may find objectionable?

But objectionable is not the same thing as obscene.

And perhaps I do, because people have different views about things, people have different feelings.

As a librarian, I'm supposed to collect a wide range of items for my community.

So not everyone in the community agrees.

So that's how the controversy begins.

- [Lee] While she doesn't believe this law affects her ability to do her job right now, Rogers worries about the future.

She wonders if this is just the first step on a path that leads to fewer books about diverse identities on classroom and library shelves.

- I worry that students won't get the reading materials that they want and they also won't get the reading materials that they need.

It makes me very, very happy when I have students who come to me asking for a lesbian romance, for instance, or a boys love manga, or something like that.

And I have those books.

I have always tried to make sure that students can see themselves on the library shelf.

- [Lee] But it's not just schools and state houses where this debate is playing out.

A suburban Indianapolis library system was engulfed in controversy in 2023 for a policy that went far beyond what Indiana law dictates.

- A list of things you will no longer find in the teen section of the East Hamilton Public Library.

- [Lee] The Hamilton East Public Library Board approved a new rule that banned books that contain sex, drug and alcohol use, repeated profanity, and violence from the children and teen sections in the library system.

The policy led to the relocation of nearly 2,000 books from the youth section to the adult collection.

- I learned this week that my YA novel "Private Label" has been moved from the teen section of the Hamilton East Public Library to the adult section.

- [Lee] Some of the relocated books include critically acclaimed young adult classics, like Judy Blume's "Forever" and John Green's young adult novels "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Looking for Alaska," as well as "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson.

The board also voted to remove a specific picture book called "Why?

: A Conversation about Race" by the actor Taye Diggs from the children's section.

(parents chattering) Four people with conservative views were appointed to the library board.

And by the end of 2022, they held a majority of its seats.

They were the ones responsible for crafting and approving this policy.

Library staff were directed to read the entire youth collection and relocate any books that might violate the new rules.

- There are a number of libraries in different states where individuals who I think have sort of gained new positions on library boards have used them to pass policies without clearly thinking through, you know, what the problems of vague policies are for something like the curation of a library.

- [Lee] The conservative board members said they were responding to concerns from parents about inappropriate books in the youth section.

- We've got books that are kind of trying to make normalization of things.

They're just not good for two and a half year old when they should be thinking about butterflies, Dr. Seuss, and just the innocent things of life.

- [Lee] And while the empty shelves in the library's teen zone angered many in the community.

- We are not banning or censoring books in this library.

- [Lee] Some applauded the policy.

Bruce Boyd is a resident of Noblesville, Indiana who describes himself as a Christian missionary.

- I echo all of the previous speakers in appreciating what the library board has been doing in terms of moving inappropriate materials from the children and youth sections into the adult sections.

- [Lee] Boyd told me he thinks books that feature diverse representations of gender and sexuality could be harmful to kids.

And his belief is that libraries should be aligned to a Christian moral standard.

- We've got a lot of opinions out there, a lot of opinions.

And so in a public library in a Christian nation, I think that, you know, my opinion, I feel like the standard's been set.

And if we're gonna be a Christian nation, we need to abide by the Christian standard.

- [Lee] But Boyd's perspective isn't one shared by many of the people who spoke out at these library board meetings.

- I'm old enough to know what I want to read.

I'm old enough to know gay people exist, and how a baby is made, and that people can die.

And if you don't want your little kids reading those books, then parent them.

(attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) - My name is Max, I'm 16.

And my local community library is Hamilton East Public Library.

- Max heard about the policy change at their local library from their mom.

They described it as outrageous.

We're not showing Max's face to shield them from potential harassment.

And I've taken a look at some of the books that have been removed from the teen and youth section, and there seems to be some common themes, you know, issues of racial injustice, but there's also a lot of books about LGBTQ identities and characters.

How does it make you feel to see those kinds of books on the list of books that have been re-shelved?

- [Max] The first book that I read wasn't the reason I realized I was trans.

It was just nice to see, once I realized that, to see that represented in a book.

So now that it's not being represented, it might be harder for people to realize or even just feel safe in their own identity, and that's my concern.

- [Lee] Max shows me some of their favorite books.

They say most of these titles would've been moved out of the teen section due to the library's policy because they touch on violence, alcohol use, and teenagers exploring gender expression and their sexual identities.

They're books that tackle challenging themes, and they deeply resonate with Max.

- [Max] Historically, anyone who bans books is trying to create a more narrow worldview so they can impose their own ideas.

- When you see what's playing out right now in your community, with your public library, what worries you the most?

- [Max] What worries me is that people are going to agree with people who say, oh, we should hide books because historically that's led to like political takeovers, genocides, and, in the end, wars.

And that's what really scares me, especially with, again, the political climate of all these anti-trans laws, is that this will only continue further and it won't be safe for me to even live here anymore.

- [Lee] Books that include LGBTQ themes are among the most challenged in public libraries according to data collected by the American Library Association.

During the first eight months of 2023, the ALA documented nearly 700 attempts to sensor library materials and services, including challenges to almost 2,000 unique titles.

That represents a 20% increase from the same period in 2022, which saw the highest number of book challenges since the ALA began recording this data two decades ago.

The ALA says many of these challenges were attempts to censor multiple titles at once.

And of the 13 most challenged books in 2022, seven were challenged because they contained LGBTQ content.

And all 13 were claimed to contain sexually explicit content.

Those who study censorship say these attempts to ban books are an attack on everyone's right to read freely.

Censorship isn't a new issue in Indiana.

In 1977, parents in several small towns called for the removal of "Go Ask Alice," Lee Burris's fictional diary of a teenage girl.

In the small town of Warsaw, the high school principal agreed and banned it along with "The Bell Jar" and "Stepford Wives."

And in 1982 in Tell City, there was a community outroar over John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men," a sex ed book, and a course on the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons.

Concerns about censorship have also existed for ages.

Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451" is a cautionary tale against it.

But experts say the current moment is different.

- I'm Dr. Jason Aukerman.

I teach courses at Indiana University.

I teach courses on banned books.

And I also direct the Ray Bradbury Center.

- [Lee] Aukerman says in decades past, individuals objected to specific books.

Now, groups of people are objecting to entire concepts.

Aukerman says the purpose of a library is to preserve information and knowledge and to make it accessible to the public.

- I think there is maybe this perception that my child doesn't need to be monitored when they're visiting a library because there's not gonna be anything in there that would challenge the way that I'm trying to raise my child.

And the reality is that libraries don't exist for a specific demographic.

They exist for everyone.

Knowledge should be free and accessible to everyone.

- [Lee] And that's what many of the people who are against taking books out of the youth section at the Hamilton East Public Library have said, including bestselling author and Indianapolis resident John Green.

He criticized the Hamilton East Library Board for their policy, which resulted in the removal of his young adult novels "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Looking for Alaska" from the teen section.

- What we read shapes what we think.

And when people want to control what we read, it is very much because they want to control what we think.

- [Lee] Green's criticism drew scrutiny to the library board.

- What we're asking for is like, hey, help us define the process.

- Micah Beckwith is a pastor at Life Church in Noblesville.

He was appointed to the library board in the fall of 2022.

He's one of the four conservative library board members responsible for this new policy.

I wanna know, what is your response to author John Green's criticism of what's happened here?

- I would just say, hey, John, like, that was not the intent of the policy.

Let's move your book back.

I mean, that was my first response today I found out about John Green book.

I'm like, okay, well, move it back.

Like, if it's not a bad book, put it back in the young adult section.

So that was my response and that's what I would tell John.

But we're not censoring books.

His idea that we're censoring is just not right.

- I think there's a lot of people who do feel that this is censorship because you're making it harder for kids to access certain books.

And right now, you're actually making it harder for kids to access a lot of books, hundreds of books that have been relocated to the adult section.

- Well, I don't think that's censorship, and I don't think we're making it harder, and I think we're trying to say, hey, we're just making sure that there is an aspect of safety in the teens and children's section.

- [Lee] Beckwith's bigger point though is that the children's and teen's zone should be a space where parents can let their kids roam free without fear they'll run into certain ideas or images they find objectionable.

- We've gotta make sure that we take on a little bit of that responsibility as a library to say, hey, we're gonna help moms and dads make sure that this is a safe environment for the kids.

Everyone's welcome.

Every viewpoint can be shared in the kids and teens section, but the way you share it, sometimes it gets real graphic.

- The response to that, from what I've heard, is, well, if that parent has a problem, then they can supervise their children.

- So you're making them have to go through hoops as a parent.

And so it's basically saying, mom and dad, who are maybe conservative in nature, we really don't care about you.

You're really not welcome here.

You can be here, but this isn't gonna be your place.

That's the message that's being sent with your argument right there.

And so, again, how do we compromise?

It's their library too, just as much as it's the person on the other side's library, is it not?

So that's what we're saying is like, okay, the compromise is that content that meets that standard, we're going to just move it over to the adult section.

And that's how everybody, moms and dads on both sides of the issue, can feel safe in the teens and kids section.

- [Moderator] I wanna make sure if we're staying up to three minutes- - [Lee] But the majority of the nearly 200 people who showed up to a Hamilton East Public Library Board meeting at the height of this controversy were not on Beckwith's side.

- The library is not a political entity.

- It seems really ill thought out.

- Finally, to reiterate what many people have been saying for months, rescind the inherently bad Collection Development Policy.

(attendees applauding) (attendees cheering) - [Lee] And that's ultimately what happened.

In November, 2023, the library board voted to end the controversial part of their Collection Development Policy.

And the majority of the books that were removed will be returned to the youth section.

(parents chattering) A spokesperson for Hamilton East Public Library says the review process cost the library system roughly $60,000.

And since the controversy began, all four board members responsible for the policy were either removed or have since resigned from their positions, including Beckwith.

Max, the teenager who spoke out against the policy, is optimistic that young people have the power to change systems they believe are harmful.

- What makes me hopeful is the fact that a lot of other people my age, who are Gen-Z, we have access to the internet and know how much power that can hold.

I think that we have the power to stop this if we all pitch in.

And I think we can.

- [Lee] Legislative efforts to control the types of books and activities children have access to in schools and libraries continue across the country, including Indiana.

Legislation was filed in early 2024 that again targeted libraries and sought to define what was harmful to kids.

But these bills didn't get any traction this year.

Still, Republicans like Representative Jim Tomes are adamant that libraries and schools continue to offer inappropriate content to kids.

I told Tomes during our interview what librarians had shared with me, that they're not exposing kids to obscene materials.

- I will say this, if you're defending these libraries and these books, you're on the wrong side of things.

But that's okay.

You're entitled to be on the wrong side.

But I'm gonna look out for the kids.

- I just wanna make it clear, I don't think there are educators or librarians who are advocating for pornography in classrooms.

I think what they're advocating for is the ability to have a wide range of literature in which many children can see themselves reflected.

- Well, if you show some of these nasty pictures to a kid, whether you wanna call it advocacy or you just wanna try to influence, we can get into semantics all we want, I'm just saying, I said what I said.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Okay, thank you.

- [Lee] Yeah, I appreciate your time.

Meanwhile, there are librarians, educators, authors, and parents who are determined not to let lawmakers restrict what young people have access to.

Leah Johnson, the Indianapolis author, says her goal with Loudmouth Books is to stock work and host events that reflect the lived experiences of queer people and people of color, and to be a steadfast home for titles that have been the target of bans.

- I write the kind of books now at this point in time that a decade ago did not get the same type of shelf space, if any.

My hope is that this is the beginning of what is going to become the new canon, full of people who look like me and move through the world the way that I moved through the world.

(upbeat music)