Submitted by Bri Schmidt
Reno has always been a land of “live and let live” — our culture is that of “you do your thing, I’ll do my thing, and we’ll get along.” Unfortunately, Nevada values are under attack from national extremist organizations looking to invade our libraries and schools.
A small group of individuals attend every library board, school board and county commissioners’ meeting with one goal in mind — remove diversity in Washoe County and push their Christian nationalist values onto everyone, regardless of others’ beliefs.
The start of this journey comes in the form of tactics from “Fahrenheit 451” and “1984”: book banning. Book banning is nothing new in history. All the way back in 35 A.D., the Roman emperor Caligula opposed the reading of “The Odyssey” by Homer, written more than 300 years before. He thought the epic poem was dangerous because it expressed Greek ideas of freedom.
In North Dakota in 1973, the school board of Drake ordered the burning of 32 copies of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and 60 copies of James Dickey’s “Deliverance” for, respectively, the use of profanity and references to homosexuality.
In 2012, people in the United States demanded the removal of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” from public library shelves. According to the American Library Association (ALA), complainants claimed the novel was sexually explicit and objected to depictions of violence and the novel’s religious viewpoint. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, published in 1987, explores the destructive legacy of slavery in 19th-century America.
One theme ties these books together, as well as other books that appear on banned books lists. These books present unique, diverse viewpoints and ideas. And for their crime of daring to dream? The punishment is exclusion from the public and a fiery death.
Most books under attack in Washoe County feature LGBTQ+ themes. Public comment given during meetings is filled with hate speech, discussing how LGBTQ+ people are a mar on the world, and their “alternative lifestyle” is ruining the Christian nationalism our country is supposed to implement.
What these book banners fail to understand is that we can trust individuals to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. In Washoe County School District, parents have full control over the books available to their children. They can limit checkouts by title, author or entire genres.
Parents have the right to guide their children’s reading, but parents should not be making decisions for other parents’ children. Specifically, a small group of parents should not dictate what books other people’s children are allowed to read.
Additionally, many of these individuals don’t even have students in the Washoe County School District. A brief conversation will reveal that most of these people either homeschool or have no children or grandchildren in the school district whatsoever. And yet, they would like to make decisions for all parents in Washoe County about what their child can and cannot read.
At a school board meeting in June, they pulled in speakers from national organizations to perform during public comment, despite a lack of agenda items on books, making them unable to enact any actual change.
Books are tools for understanding complex issues. Limiting young people’s access to books does not protect them from life’s complex and challenging issues. Reading is a foundational skill, critical to future learning and to exercising our democratic freedoms.
Literacy rates in Washoe County are below 50% for elementary and middle school students. High school students just barely made it to 52%. The problem in the school district is not what our students are reading; the problem is whether they are reading at all.
Young people deserve to see themselves reflected in a library’s books. Removing and banning books from public libraries and schools is a slippery slope to government censorship and the erosion of our country’s commitment to freedom of expression.
Stand up for the freedom to read in Washoe County: Sign the petition to show our elected officials that we won’t stand for censorship, make a plan to attend a school board or library board meeting, and read banned books. A list of books challenged in the Washoe County Library System can be found here.
Bri Schmidt is Program Associate for Silver State Equality, Nevada’s LGBTQ+ civil rights nonprofit organization striving to create a world that is healthy, just and fully equal.
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