The culture wars have been around forever, but keep taking new forms, and US variants threaten to spill over to Australia – as seen in the recent (overturned) ban on same-sex parenting books in Sydney.
Australia has a long history of book banning organised by Christian associations and churches. A federal court appeal attempt to ban graphic memoir Gender Queer is still to be considered this year.
Cumberland City Council’s ban of books depicting same-sex parents from its libraries implies such relationships are unnatural or strange. What’s happening?
Current precedent relies on a 1982 case in which five justices generally agreed there were limits on a school’s power to ban books, but they didn’t agree on why.
Moms for Liberty, founded in 2021 and now boasting 120,000 members, could ride its conservative, limited-government message to a position of strong influence in the GOP.
The hijacking of freedom by far-right politicians like Florida’s Ron DeSantis raises crucial questions about whose freedom is truly at stake in a time of tyranny.
Distinct from civil disobedience, this legal strategy demands complete compliance with the law – even when there are loopholes that the laws’ creators didn’t intend.
Librarians are defending the rights of readers and writers in the battle raging across the US over censorship, book challenges and book bans. That conflict has even changed how librarians are trained.
The constitutionality of the recent wave of proposed book bans is unclear, as the US Supreme Court has given states wide latitude to regulate what is read in public schools and libraries.
Differences over what counts as indoctrination lie behind a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Florida. PEN America’s CEO deems book removals ‘a deliberate attempt to suppress diverse voices’.
Book bans in Ron DeSantis’s Florida have censored beloved Australian author Mem Fox – for an illustrated character’s bath. But blanket nudity bans teach children bodies are ‘inherently sexual’.
New research on school superintendent turnover rates reveals that divisive political issues are contributing to the problem of instability among school leadership across the US.
There have been numerous efforts to limit students’ access to books and curricula about certain historical and societal topics. But history itself shows democracy suffers when people are uninformed.
The outrage misdirected at Lolita – and its author – does nothing to negate the realities it reflects. Reading Nabokov’s novel now raises questions about censorship, book banning and human nature.
Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret is a coming-of-age story about identity, relationships, and relationships with your own body. It’s frequently challenged – and enduringly loved.
The United States came in 41st worldwide on the UN’s 2022 sustainable development index, down nine spots from last year. A political historian explains the country’s dismal scores.