Education

Conservative books ‘banned’ from Vermont school libraries

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You can find works by Karl Marx, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama on the Essex Westford School District library shelves. Good luck finding anything by Victor Davis Hanson, Milton Friedman, or Abigail Shrier, though.

by Molly Jesse and Richard Jesse

There’s an effort afoot against banning books from Vermont libraries. H806, sponsored by Rep. Robin Chesnut-Tangerman (D-Middletown Springs) and other lawmakers on the Democrat/Progressive spectrum would “prohibit the banning or removal of library materials by public or school libraries and restrict any form of State funding for a library that violates the materials retention rules adopted by the State Librarian.” Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman has conducted “Banned Book Tours” at which he reads from books banned from school libraries in other states. 

What comes to mind when you think of banning a book from a school’s library? Do you think of a book being removed from the library because it has been deemed pornographic .. or racist .. or age-inappropriate for, say, elementary children? Likely people have complained about the book? 

But what about a book that has not been added to a library? A recent example from Vermont Daily Chronicle is an EWSD parent who asked that the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (Abigail Shrier) be placed “on an easel atop the shelves in the HS library.” A district administrator stated that the book “actually goes against our equity policy and can cause harm,” and the book is not in the EHS Library collection.

In his article “The Truth About Banned Books” in The Free Press, James Fishback writes:

“I’ve spent time meeting with students, parents, teachers, and school board members. Several students complained that their school libraries had become one-sided, offering only books in line with progressive orthodoxy. So I decided to investigate just how one-sided things actually are. I surveyed the library catalogs of 35 of the largest public school districts in eight red states and six blue states, representing over 4,600 individual schools.”

Fishback looked up books written by some well-known progressive thinkers. Here is what he found. In addition, we note whether the books are available for students usage in our Essex High School (EHS) Library:

In EHS

Library? Title and Percentage of the 35 Districts That Stock the Book

     Yes – The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx) — 75%

     Yes – Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent (Isabel Wilkerson) — 60%

     Yes – The 1619 Project (Nikole Hannah-Jones) — 54%

     Yes – Stamped (Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi) — 71%

     Yes – An African American and Latinx History of the U.S. (Paul Ortiz) — 40%

     Yes – The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander) — 60%

     No* – Guide to Political Revolution (Bernie Sanders) — 40%

     Yes – White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo) — 54%

     Yes – So You Want to Talk About Race (Ijeoma Oluo) — 57%

     Yes – This Book Is Anti-Racist (Tiffany Jewell) — 45%

*The EHS Library has Our Revolution (Bernie Sanders)

Fishback also looked at books written by some well-known conservative thinkers. Here are the results for these books:

In EHS

Library? Title and Percentage of the 35 Districts That Stock the Book

     No – Capitalism and Freedom (Milton Friedman) — 8%

     No – Created Equal (Dr. Ben Carson) — 5%

     No – Woke Racism (John McWhorter) — 3%

     No – Breaking History (Jared Kushner) — 2%

     No – Social Justice Fallacies (Thomas Sowell) — 0%

     No – The War on the West (Douglas Murray) — 0%

     No – The 1619 Project: A Critique (Phillip W. Magness) — 0%

     No – The Case Against Impeaching Trump (Alan Dershowitz) — 0%

     No – Decades of Decadence (Marco Rubio) — 0%

     No – The Diversity Delusion (Heather Mac Donald) — 0%

     No – The Case for Trump (Victor Davis Hanson) — 0%

Note: The only books in the EHS Library by any of these eleven authors are Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (Dr. Ben Carson) and Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (Thomas Sowell).

Here are two more examples of censorship:

In EHS

Library? Title and Percentage of the 35 Districts That Stock the Book

     Yes Dreams from My Father (Barack Obama) — 75%

versus

     No Decision Points (George W. Bush) — 37%

     Yes The Truths We Hold (Kamala Harris) — 57%

versus

     No So Help Me God (Mike Pence) — 6%

After reviewing the information above, some Vermonters reach this conclusion: EWSD libraries, like many school libraries, have become reflections of politicized school administators and librarians. And Essex and Westford students, and students across Vermont, deserve education, not indoctrination.

The authors are Essex Junction residents and parents. They operate a non-profit, Make Water Safe for the World.

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Categories: Education

54 replies »

  1. Does any library have ‘Not Equal, Civil Rights Gone Wrong’ by Ryan Scott Bomberger?

    • Or Hijack by Anthony Bryant? I have asked our local library to obtain a copy 5 years ago.

  2. Are any of us true vermonters really surprised? The state isn’t what we grew up in, completely controlled by progressive/ liberals from out of state that think they know better and don’t care about us.

  3. Excellent article. Not surprising. But so very, very important to bring to light.
    That’s what we need to do. Expose the hypocritical nature and machinations. We also need to get this information out to the communities we all live in. Sadly, there is no way to do this. No one goes to town hall meetings. You can’t use FPF. And any other news source wouldn’t dare publish this in case it offended someone. Especially the legislature or their left/dem/prog/Marxist financial supporters.
    Pam Baker

  4. Conservatives need to start sponsoring conservative authors on their own dime, the same way wealthy Liberals do with their favorite authors. We can’t just hope for the problems to fix themselves without doing our part to realizing a solution.

    • Wealthy conservatives fund propaganda to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. A lot of conservative authors only exist because of a patron willing to buy up millions of dollars worth of their books. What you want to happen is already being done as much as possible.

    • Mr. Page: Your comment is a diversion and has nothing whatsoever to do with the ‘problems’ reported in this article concerning our public-school libraries. This isn’t a conservative or a liberal issue. It’s a constitutional equal protection issue in which the State, through its monopolized public education system, is depriving some of its citizens of life, liberty, and/or property, without due process. The cited books have already been sponsored and published. But certain public schools are choosing, arbitrarily and politically, to not make those books available in school libraries. Please try to stay on topic.

  5. As Jackie Gleason (as Sheriff Buford T Justice) put it in the movie classic Smokey and the Bandit, “That’s nothin’ but pure and simple old-fashioned Communism”.

    I’m thinking it’s about time to move out of New California and into New Hampshire.

  6. Yes, Liberal Vermont unless you take control away from the progressive democRATS,
    this is what you’ll keep getting………………..

    Wake up people, you can control the nonsense !!

  7. There are 2 Choices for the children: 1. Take your children Out of Public Schools. They need your children to brainwash for their Marxist Global Regime. If you take the children out of the schools, there’s no one left to brainwash for their system. Parents, Guardians, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Communities, Towns, need to realize that We The People have the power, We need to make a stand, take the children out of those brainwashing establishments, start our Own Schools with the American Values of America, Judeo-Christian Values, how America was founded. Yes, it takes sacrifice, but the alternative is worse, letting children sink into a Marxist/Globalist hell hole. 2. Change the Current Marxist/Globalist System in a tyrannical state such as Vermont, where Elections are Selections, where rampant mail-in voting with machines are still in progress, where the current majority of the Legislature are Marxists/Globalists and the Governor just proved to the whole World that he aligns himself squarely with them.

  8. If your library does not have a book you want, you can ask if they can get it for you. If they can’t or won’t, buy a copy, read it, and donate it to your library.

    • And what of all the other monopolized public-schools? Just how many books do you expect free market libertarians to afford and buy while they shell out $30,000 per student in property taxes to support Marxist ideology? It’s not just you kids, or my kids, who are being indoctrinated.

  9. These suppression tactics by Progressives are par for the course. Unless the literature subscribes to their leftist ideology, it’s out. It’s modern day book-burning. Even worse by PUBLIC schools using your tax dollars. In a more just world, Vermonters would be marching in the streets to express their outrage. Board members would be kicked out. but alas, so many are “asleep at the wheel” as Vermont fall further into the Dystopia abyss…

  10. read the book/// trance formation of america/// is this left wing or is it right wing c. i.. a.. operations///

  11. Alarmingly…. Sure glad my children are all out of school or I would be in trouble bashing libatards heads. Supertendant of the district:: How can you allow this on your watch? Are you a woke liberal that hates our country too?
    Education not indoctrination is what parents and elders expect.

  13. I work at a small public library in Vermont and find this article to be missing some very important information. As I read the list of books that you are assuming are banned by non-selection, my foremost thought is what criteria does the library use when selecting books. Are the books not selected because of their controversy or are they passed over due to lack of interest. Another factor for not adding a book to a library collection is whether the library can justify spending their limited funds for a book that could be easily obtained through the Inter-Library loan system. As with most small non-profit libraries our book budget is limited. Our book budget is
    funded primarily through individual donations. Our book selection process consists of reviewing patron suggestions and requests, book availability from our supplier, book cost vs book availability from the Inter Library Loan system and circulation reports to help us gauge what material draws the most interest from our patrons. Our space is limited therefore our book collections are updated by removing books that have not circulated in the previous 5 year period to make room for new selections. Judgement of a library’s collection is pointless unless you explore that library’s criteria for book selection and retention.

    • All very good and salient points which are likely unknown to the average person. Doesn’t change the data though. It does suggest strongly that more investigation is required. And it makes sense that what is in the library is a reflection of what the community desires.

    • This article is about school libraries, though, not public libraries. Students should be educated on all sides of an issue, and taught to think critically instead of what to think. I am starting to think I don’t like my tax dollars being spent on public libraries and books that cater to liberal progressive viewpoints only. If book selection is based on demand, let the customer pay in full for their choices. In other words, perhaps libraries should be private businesses, not paid for through our tax dollars. Patrons can pay membership fees to use the library that is filled with the books they want to read. Honestly, public libraries are useless for my taste. None of the books I want to read are available. We all pay into public schools as well: education and resources should be balanced.

    • Actually, I believe it’s about both….
      “prohibit the banning or removal of library materials by public or school libraries and restrict any form of State funding for a library that violates the materials retention rules adopted by the State Librarian.”

    • In the final analysis, government shouldn’t be involved in any of these issues…. be they public libraries or public schools.

      “Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” M. Friedman

      “I heartily accept the motto, – “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, – “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
      H.D. Thoreau

  14. When will conservatives learn that in a free market, people will choose not to buy your products if they don’t want to. To lie and say books are banned is ridiculous, but you obviously know your kid free audience with a mental model of a one-room schoolhouse.

    Tell me what my kid would learn from the biographies of W or Vivek? How to destroy the economy? Take our civil liberties? How about pathetic Vivek. Does my kid need to learn how to do medical and patent fraud? Or how to unsuccessfully kiss Trump’s a$$?

    Alan Dershowitz is on the list? Do you really want our kids reading the works of a pedophile? Show this op-ed to any licensed educator or the majority of Vermont parents and they would laugh, laugh, laugh. If you want to get in the libraries, here’s a free market thought: try being interesting.

    • This issue has nothing to do with one’s right to buy a book in a free market. The issue is whether or not a public school, ostensibly tasked with providing equity of curricula, can stock its library with books of one political dogma instead of another. You are entitled to your opinion, and to have your kids read the books you choose. And I’m entitled to my opinion, and to have my children read the books I choose. But if those books aren’t available in school, your choices or mine, that’s a problem.

    • So now when no one’s reading your books because they are unpopular, it becomes about equity? lol Is there ever a time you guys aren’t moving the goalposts?

    • Mr. Eshelman, thank you for saying the obvious…. because clearly some people’s reading comprehension is non-existent. The article clearly and succinctly points out the bias that conservative books are not ADDED to the catalog of libraries-books are left out, not necessarily “banned”. Such obvious works by well-known and scholarly academics such as Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson as well as renown writers such as Douglas Murray and Milton Friedman are not added. While books that are in a majority of libraries, such as the communist manifesto of Marx and “Stamped” and “The New Jim Crow”. The latter of which are highly divisive along with “The 1619 Project” are well represented in the catalog.

      I have no problem having those books, divisive or not, in public access libraries. None whatsoever. We absolutely should have them available. I do have a problem with excluding books that don’t offer a differing viewpoint.
      It has nothing whatsoever to do with free market and anyone who brings that highly flawed concept to this discussion is seriously suffering from illiteracy.

      Since we are on the topic of “banning” books, there are plenty of publications that have no business in grammar school libraries. And the fact that it has to be addressed -that pornographic, sexually explicit material should not be available to minors, is completely mind boggling. If that is the way they feel, then they should repeal the law forbidding minors from purchasing Hustler and Playboy. That of course is not how I really believe this should play out, but it was used to make a point. No one would knowingly hand a 7-year-old child a copy of Hustler or Playboy and think it was a good thing. Or would they? I just don’t know any longer.

      When you point fingers at other people, there are three fingers pointing back at yourself.
      I have not pointed any fingers. I am just suggesting some people do not have comprehensive reading skills as evidenced by their own words.

    • That people like ‘Chris’ (who has shared with us the fact that he is, or was, a schoolteacher), claim that I’m ‘moving the goal posts’, when, in fact I’m doing just the opposite by citing what the article actually says, is a poignant example of psychological projection. Chris’ point that I promote ‘your books’, or anyone else’s, whatever those are, is a diversion. The issue common with many teachers is that they see themselves as ‘teachers’… and everyone else, in their minds, are students, or otherwise unqualified to provide educated opinions. We aren’t ‘teachers’, after all. How can we know anything without learning from him, or from other ‘teachers’? For Chris to admit to himself that someone other than a teacher can have an educated opinion threatens his very existence as a ‘teacher’.

    • Re: “I can always learn as long as I am willing to understand that I don’t know already know everything.” Well…..that leaves Chris out! The most amusing part of all this is always the leftists’ predictability. I KNEW before I even posted that, that he would immediately request that I personally list every book that has been a best seller…..anything to “distract” and of course, THEY can NEVER do the footwork themselves. They are perpetual Marxists/Communists: their Commie playbook (Rules for Radicals as an example) is akin to what a Holy Bible is/has been for trillions the world over.

    • Can you provide your proof that Alan Dershowitz is a pedophile? He has not be convicted, or even charged with that. And the woman who accused him retracted her accusation. So, if you do not have proof, you should be much more careful with your libelous charges.

    • Robert: Chris is clearly in denial. If Chris read what Dershowitz actually said in the article Chris cited, he would see that the citation actually disproves his assertion. But again, Chris can’t accept his own misunderstanding of the facts. He’s the ‘teacher’.

    • Shhhh……a lot of those books that don’t “sell” are/were on the NY Times Best Seller list! Whoops!!! More propaganda – or lies as most would refer to them as – from the lunatic left!

    • Which ones on that list, Little Marco’s? The only lie here was, well most of the article starting with saying that conservative books are banned when they’re just bad and unpopular. Glad you’re back having arguments with your strawmen!!

    • Re: “…the article starting with saying that conservative books are banned when they’re just bad and unpopular.”

      Kathleen, Chris’ denial here is obvious for all to see.

      The article takes great care to express the difference between “What comes to mind when you think of banning a book from a school’s library?” and “But what about a book that has not been added to a library?”

      I’m not trying to convince Chris to re-evaluate his perspective – I know my limitations. But I do feel obligated to point out the deficiencies in his perspective for other VDC readers to consider. After all, if someone can point out the deficiencies in my perspective, I welcome the contribution. I can always learn, as long as I’m willing to understand that I don’t already know everything.

    • Typical lefty – they love to engage in defamation of character and from some of the readings I’ve heard, the children are already reading phonographic works. And if a conservative complains, they get yelled at for wanting to “ban books” when all they want is to ban children from reading them. The leftists are the ones who are okay with children reading inappropriate and damaging material.

  15. Not to WORRY Vermonters! The LT Governor is on this! I just saw him leave the Bureaucr-RAT Cave with his tights and cape on – presumably racing to libraries near & far to make certain that ALL books are distributed “equitably” in Vermont as he has PROMISED!!!! Thanks, Rat Man!!!!

  16. go on the web site /// king luxury jeff epstein powerful people/// you should get all your answers///

  17. What more proof does anyone need to acknowledge the fact that the democratic platform is nothing but an anti-American, communist supporting infestation within our public school system. This infestation of evil will ultimately start a real revolution, and when it does, extermination of the infestation is the only cure that will save our country from the hell they promise

  19. The Davos crowd gave the marching orders – they must address misinformation post haste! March you soldiers of Lucifer! The role of a librarian (as is a journalist employed by the Matrix) is now part and parcel of the Fourth Reich. Critical thinking is frowned upon, free thinking is an assault on the herd and the Master, and 1984 is now a non-fiction documentary. Carry on!

  20. Well, if a library is going to feature the Communist Manifesto, it should also carry “The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration” by Paul Kengor or the Black book of Communism about the 90+ million killed by Communists in the 20th Century.

    • I think the part where you count all the Nazis killed in WW2 twice was an especially funny choice, but when you’re not a serious historian you can pretty much make up anything to impress rubes.

    • Re: “I think the part where you count all the Nazis killed in WW2 twice…”???

      It looks to me that you misunderstand the ‘debunking’ retort by the Communist, Anton, and others as they do their best to wriggle free from the accounting and characterizations of Communist indiscretions (i.e., Communist murders and killings). It’s not that Nazi deaths are counted twice, but rather that they aren’t counted completely. Anton’s only retort, for example, is that, had the Nazi’s been successful in their attempt to control the world, the Nazis would have likely exceeded the deaths caused by Communist Russia. The classic ‘big if’.

      In that regard, the fact remains – the Nazis were defeated by libertarian free-market western governments and denied the opportunity to prove the extent of their evil. It remains to be seen whether or not communism will continue to be held in check elsewhere. But rather than make excuses for the reality of Communist evil, you had better hope libertarian free-market society continues to prevail.

      Unfortunately, these realities are absent in many of our public schools because Marxists (the precursor of a Communist) are in control of the libraries in our public-school monopoly.

      “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” –Vladimir Lenin

  22. Sounds like the library is stalking books that are either serious, popular, or historically important. I don’t know if culture war cry baby stuff written by no name authors really counts. This is a sad attempt to grab some victimhood.

    • “…culture war cry baby stuff written by no name authors really counts”.
      Oh my goodness, thank you so much for the laugh “aaronflenser”. I thoroughly enjoyed that line. I’m sure both Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hansen as well as Douglas Murray, Milton Friedman and Dr. Ben Carson will be glad to know that they “don’t count” as authors. They are historically unimportant, not serious or popular. I am so sure they will be very relieved, with the exception of Mr. Friedman of course, as he has died about 18 years ago, to know that “aaronflenser” does not count them as legitimate authors.
      Wow, it was hard to get that typed out while laughing so hard. Thanks again “aaronflenser”.
      Have a good day.
      Respectfully,
      Pam Baker

    • Do you mean “stalking” or “stocking”? Two different words with totally different meanings!

  23. How many school libraries have Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand?

    • Well, I doubt the supposed school where “Chris” purportedly teaches carries “The Fountainhead” – as he most recently referred to Rand as essentially a penniless loser when she passed away. I’m pretty sure Chris doesn’t teach on Planet Earth though, so that’s a good thing.

    • HaHaHaHa!!! Fountainhead??? Many school libraries carry Atlas Shrugged but caught on by about page 987, like most libertarians, they talk loud but say nothing. Libertarians like Ayn Rand who died penniless on welfare are like house cats, King of the Jungle in their own mind while blissfully unaware of the system on which they depend. A school isn’t going to carry Fountainhead not due to censorship, but because it’s their job to make the kids smarter, not dumber.