cartoon by Ann Telnaes

On Being Banned, Strategic Censorship, and Telling the Truth

Back in April, US Defense Secretary Pete “Signal” Hegseth ordered 381 books removed from the US Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library. These included works read by young people—Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give—and scholarship on books for young people, such as Robin Bernstein’s Racial Innocence and

No More Kings! Protest Musk’s Coup, on Presidents Day 2025

        “I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?         That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at

Defend the Right to Read: Resources for Opposing Book Bans

Here are some resources for supporting public libraries and defending everyone’s right to read freely. I assembled them for the “Censoring Children’s Literature” class I taught last semester, and am sharing them now in connection with the Modern Language Association panel “Drag Queens, Stories about Black People, and Other Dangers,” held in the Liberty Room

Why Are People Afraid of Multicultural Children’s Books? (Geschichte der Gegenwart)

Why are people afraid of multicultural children’s books?  To answer that question, I look back to the roots of American censorship — which, as you doubtless know, has been enjoying a renaissance lately.  My piece makes its debut today in Geschichte der Gegenwart, a Swiss publication the title of which means History of the Present. That’s