New House Bill Banishes Books at LASA

graphic by Amelia Coleman

House Bill (HB) 338, which was proposed in Nov. of  2022, will add a mandatory, state-given, age-appropriate rating to all books in Texas school libraries. Under the legislation, publishers would assign specific age ratings to all books sold to school districts. State agencies could direct publishers to amend any of these ratings and if publishers fail to do so, the school districts would be banned from purchasing them. Additionally, if the publisher doesn’t comply, they will have to recall all copies and stop selling the book in Texas, and schools would be banned from buying books from the publisher.

Freshman Alyssa Wang points out that she can see the pros and cons of age ratings, but talked about how she’s concerned how exactly the books would be rated. Students of the same age can have vastly different maturity levels, making it difficult to determine what age is most appropriate for them to read different materials. 

“I have to say that it’s understandable that they would pass that bill,” Wang said, “but at the same time, I’m very concerned about what exactly would qualify as age appropriate.”

Wang went on to say that she understands how this bill could be dangerous. She is worried that authors and publishers would become more restrictive with the language and content they put in books in order to stay relevant in education.

“I also think that some political ideas may be a little restricted since it is very hard to escape political influence,” Wang said. “But personally, I think what students read isn’t exactly in the control of the school, so I don’t think it impacts this student’s education all that much.”

Freshman Elena Zong commented that ratings of the books could potentially be very politicized and dangerous. Zong worries that the government might want to prevent knowledge and influences from particular books or political ideologies from reaching kids.

“[The ratings] will probably stay politicized because humans can’t really censor their bias from the stuff that they decide,” Zong said. “So even if it’s like us, a group of people like a board deciding which books to censor or not, there’s still going to be some bias in that. Unless it [the board] was enormously diverse.”

  Zong added that she believes this bill will limit certain ideals and allow other political ideas to spread throughout Texas. To her, this seems like a bad thing since she feels reading helps shape children’s viewpoint, and with certain books being censored, it could cause future generations to be more biased.

Elizabeth Switek, the librarian at LASA, feels that putting age limits on books is a government intrusion and said that limiting access to ideas and information limits citizenship skills. Additionally, it would just be an extra burden to librarians and school districts. Switek mentioned that librarians are more than qualified to make purchases for their students, and the bill minimizes their expertise.

“An American Library Association survey has already found that librarians in many states are making purchasing decisions with the potential for a challenge in mind,” Switek said. “They are making ‘safer’ choices and not buying books that they think these extremist parent groups will try to challenge; which means that less inclusive books are being purchased.”

According to Switek, the passage of HB 338 could prevent students from being educated on important topics. Switek commented that controversial subject matter would be the first to leave the shelves.

 “Right now we are seeing certain school districts making it illegal to have books with an LGBTQ character, or books where Black Lives Matter is mentioned,” Switek said. “Removing these books from classrooms and school libraries essentially removes these people and ideas from students which means they cannot learn about the world around them.”