Censorship/Book Bans
Race & Discrimination
News Stories From 2024 and Earlier
December 13, 2024
The University of Pittsburgh is developing a working group on antisemitism following a fall semester that saw tension increase over the Israel-Hamas War and the assaults of three Jewish students on or near campus.
Commissioned by Chancellor Joan Gabel and Provost Joe McCarthy, the working group will analyze and help address antisemitism on campus and in the greater Pittsburgh region.
The ultimate goal is to make Pitt “better for everyone” by tackling issues faced by Jewish students, faculty and staff, said Jennifer Murtazashvili, a political science professor who will co-chair the group.
“I really want Pitt to be an example,” said Ms. Murtazashvili, who is Jewish. “I want us to be a role model for other universities.” Read More
November 27, 2024
The Pennsylvania Department of Education’s recent decision to rescind guidelines about culturally relevant teaching practices has some Black educators in Philadelphia worried about the impact on teacher recruitment in a district where the student body is already far more diverse than its mostly white teaching force.
Earlier this month, the state settled a lawsuit with a conservative advocacy group by agreeing that prospective and practicing teachers will no longer be required to adhere to guidelines that included developing awareness of how their own “unconscious biases” could affect their approach to teaching and their expectations of students. Read More
November 19, 2024
Lately, social media has been getting a bad rap: Some say it’s harmful to young people and the government is considering a ban. But in the hands of creative educators, TIkTok can be a powerful tool, spreading knowledge to anyone with a cellphone.
There are educators all over social media who are finding ways to uplift spirits, build community, and teach their viewers tools that help them boost achievement inside of the classroom. Read More
November 15, 2024
Officials shared that high school Hispanic and LGBTQIA students are receiving offensive messages saying they’ve been selected for deportation or re-education camps.
“Although we have not received reports of violent acts stemming from these offensive messages, we are evaluating all reported incidents and engaging with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division,” the FBI wrote in a release. “We are also sharing information with our law enforcement partners and community, academia, and faith leaders.”
Law enforcement said the communications have expanded to emails. Read More
November 15, 2024
Students who experienced racism said their mental health also deteriorated, a new study showed.
In 2023, nearly a third of high school students across the U.S. said they had experienced racism in school, which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers who published the findings defined as unfair treatment due to a person’s race or ethnicity. Students of color reported they had had two to three times more racist experiences than white students who said they’d had.
These experiences resulted in students having more mental health issues and a greater risk of suicide and substance use than students who had never had them. The findings amplify concerns among experts and officials about the youth mental health crisis, particularly with an increasingly nonwhite student population in the U.S. Read More
November 12, 2024
The parents of a Black high school cheerleader in Pennsylvania have filed a federal racial discrimination lawsuit claiming peers, coaches, and school officials repeatedly singled out their daughter, including forcing her to crawl on the floor like a “pet” while a white teammate pretended to walk her with an imaginary leash.
The 40-page lawsuit, filed Nov. 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, alleges that coaches at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg subjected the girl to disproportionate discipline, assigned her trivial tasks, excluded her from team photos, and dismissed any concerns she expressed about the mistreatment throughout the 2023-24 season. Read More
November 8, 2024
Several school districts in Montgomery and Delaware counties are warning parents about racist and derogatory text messages targeting students.
In a letter sent to parents and guardians Thursday, Lower Merion School District Acting Superintendent Megan E. Shafer said at least six of their middle school students have reported receiving the racist text messages.
“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted,” Shafer said. “While the source of these messages has not been determined, we want to unequivocally state that racist language is unacceptable in our schools and will not be tolerated.”
Shafer did not say what the text messages said or when they were sent. It’s also unclear who is sending the messages. Read More
October 10, 2024
Students who experienced racism said their mental health also deteriorated, a new study showed.
In 2023, nearly a third of high school students across the U.S. said they had experienced racism in school, which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers who published the findings defined as unfair treatment due to a person’s race or ethnicity. Students of color reported they had had two to three times more racist experiences than white students who said they’d had.
These experiences resulted in students having more mental health issues and a greater risk of suicide and substance use than students who had never had them. The findings amplify concerns among experts and officials about the youth mental health crisis, particularly with an increasingly nonwhite student population in the U.S. Read More
October 10, 2024
A new poll indicates that the overwhelming majority of voters in Ohio support teaching about racism in schools, which some might consider surprising considering Ohio is a red state that has become the focal point of Donald Trump’s and J.D. Vance’s transparently racist campaign against Haitian migrants.
Baldwin Wallace University’s Community Research Institute surveyed 877 registered voters across Ohio, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, and found that a whopping 84% of those respondents favored teaching America’s history of systemic racism. Respondents were specifically asked about what educators should teach, whether prayer belongs in school and if parents should have control over what students are taught in classrooms.Read More
October 1, 2024
Racism exists everywhere, including in our schools.
Today’s post kicks off a series offering practical strategies for how we educators can confront it.
‘Amplify Student Voices’
Mary Rice-Boothe, Ed.D., joined The Leadership Academy in 2015 with more than 20 years of experience in education as a teacher, principal, principal coach, and curriculum designer. She currently serves as the executive director, curriculum development and equity. She is the author of Leading Within Systems of Inequity in Education: A Liberation Guide for Leaders of Color and can be found on social media @mriceboothe or by reading her newsletter: Read More
September 20, 2024
Banned Books Week, recognized each September, was founded by library activist Judith Krug in 1982 as a protest to the increase in censorship of literature. Krug believed that bans on books massively violated the First Amendment, freedom of speech.
Books are typically banned from schools and libraries for including content that contains “graphic violence, expresses disrespect for parents and family, is sexually explicit, exalts evil, lacks literary merit, is unsuitable for a particular age group, or includes offensive language,” according to the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. Books are also often removed due to sexual orientation and race related topics. Read ore
September 2, 2024
A groundbreaking new curriculum comes to New York City public schools this year.
“When you know you come from greatness, you walk on that path,” said teacher Bongi Doughty.
After 3 years of development, Black Studies as the Study of the World is ready to roll out citywide, from pre-school to 12th grade.
From pre-school to 12th grade, students will get an expanded access to the contributions of people from African descent to the U.S. and the world. Read More
July 17, 2024
(The Center Square) – The School District of Pittsburgh will hire a consultant to put on a series of virtual workshops addressing racism in math.
The district is paying $52,000 to Nth Education Partners for a series of eight, two-hour long virtual workshops where “participants will reflect on the instruction and pedagogy that supports schools in moving toward justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in math classrooms,” according to the district.
Nth Education Partners website states it is “Disrupting Injustice In Math Education.” Read More
July 17, 2024
Hate speech is often deliberate and meant to be hurtful, while microaggressions are often more common, subtle everyday slights directed at someone’s identity. Microaggressions can be intentional or unintentional, and often perpetrators are unaware of the injury that they may have caused. Hate speech, on the other hand, is usually intentional and a direct attack on some aspect of a person’s individual or group identity. Both are problematic at schools and happen far too often, especially to minoritized students. Educators can and must play a role to stop hate speech in schools. Here are some steps that can be taken to address racism and hate speech in schools and classrooms: Read More
June 17, 2024
In 2021, an affluent, suburban school district in Texas gained national attention when parents and local conservative activists falsely accused the district of indoctrinating students with critical race theory. Mike Hixenbaugh’s “They Came for the Schools” details how it became a blueprint for Republicans across the country and exposes their ambitions. Laura Barrón-López reports..
Amna Nawaz:
In 2021, an affluent suburban school district in Texas gained national attention when parents and local conservative activists accused the district of indoctrinating students with Critical Race Theory. Read More
May 29, 2024
U.S. schools should teach about issues related to race, most Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders believe. They also oppose efforts to restrict what subjects can be discussed in the classroom, according to a new poll.
In the survey from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 71% of AAPI adults favor teaching about the history of slavery, racism and segregation in K-12 public schools. The same share also said they support teaching about the history of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the United States, while about half support teaching about issues related to sex and sexuality. Read More
May 29, 2024
An after-school game took a troubling turn last Tuesday at Lyles Crouch Traditional Academy in Alexandria.
Mom Kathryn Kelley says a group of white students allegedly told her fifth-grade son, who is half Asian, that he couldn’t sit with them.
“[They were] saying that mixed race kids had to sit at a table that was away from the white kids, and then African American and Black kids had to sit even further,” Kelley told News4. “They said that they were segregated and that they couldn’t play with the white kids.” Read More
May 25, 2024
In their book, “His Name Is George Floyd,” Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa examined how institutional racism shaped the life and legacy of the Black man murdered on Memorial Day in 2020. Four years after Floyd’s killing, the Washington Post national reporters reflect on the retrenchment of the racial-justice movement sparked by his death.
ROBERT: One day, this March, I woke up in a hotel room in Memphis and wondered if we got it all wrong.
So many times in the two years since publishing our book, “His Name Is George Floyd,” people have asked whether there is any hope for the country. Read More
May 20, 2024
Members of the Central Dauphin School District (CDSD) community took the microphone and made their voices heard as the conversation continues about the environment within district.
Parents and other concerned community members joined the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the PennLive’s Editorial Board, and the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg for an open forum Sunday night.
This follows a school board meeting earlier in the month, where families brought their concerns directly to the school board. Read More
May 17, 2024
On May 17, the nation marked the 70th anniversary of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that struck down institutionalized racial segregation in public schools.
The Brown decision struck down an 1896 decision that institutionalized racial segregation with “separate but equal” schools for Black and white students, by ruling that such accommodations were anything but equal.
In this landmark decision the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. Read More
May 17, 2024
On the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that racially separate public education was unequal, our country is getting a failing grade at school desegregation.
This anniversary should be a day of celebration, a time to recognize strides made and goals achieved. Instead, it’s time to acknowledge that our public schools have been quietly and insidiously resegregated. It’s time to acknowledge that many in this country never wanted to integrate schools in the first place, and the result is a backsliding and a disgraceful return to segregation. Read More
May 17, 2024
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas – the landmark Supreme Court decision that declared “separate but equal” education unconstitutional in the United States – remains one of the most consequential court cases in American history.
As the nation commemorates the ruling’s 70th anniversary, civil rights leaders and advocates tell CNN the case may have paved the way for more equal and integrated schools, but fierce – and continued – opposition to integration means the ruling in no way assured the end of segregated education in the United States. Read More
May 17, 2024
A Pennsylvania school district’s decision to remove a song from a recent student choral concert has divided the community and spurred a review by a civil rights group.
“Lift Every Voice And Sing,” a late-19th century hymn sometimes referred to as the Black national anthem, was among several songs that were to be performed during the May 7 show by the Spring Cove Middle School chorus. The Altoona Mirror reported that district officials cut the song the day before the concert, saying students had voiced concerns about the song and the “divisiveness and controversy in the nation.” Read More
May 14, 2024
A new book examines the white children who felt emboldened to be openly bigoted while he was president.
When sociologist Margaret Hagerman set out to interview middle-schoolers about their ideology and politics in 2017, she asked each child the same series of questions, warming them up with a few softballs — “What’s your neighborhood like?” and “Do people put up a lot of political signs?” — before moving on to “How did you feel after the presidential election?” and, later, “Some people say there’s a lot of racial tension in America right now. What do you think?” Read More
May 6, 2024
RIDGE Network, a Bucks County nonprofit organization of concerned Pennridge residents striving to shine a light on issues impacting students and teachers in the Pennridge School District, will host Building Inclusive Communities and Schools on Thursday at 7 p.m. Read More
April 29, 2024
In the wake of Justin Johnson’s death, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission said some residents might be shocked at the language caught on his doorbell camera before his collapse, but they shouldn’t be. Read More
April 21, 2024
Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is perhaps best known for the “Little Rock Nine,” the first Black students to walk through the school’s grand front doors. The year was 1957, three years after the Supreme Court declared racial segregation of public schools unconstitutional, and the gears of change were grinding to a halt. Read More
April 16, 2024
Children, like adults, want to be fair and kind. At the same time, they can be quick to reject those they perceive as different. How does this contradiction arise? And how can we help children develop a sense of morality and justice?
“One time—this was, like, a long time ago—I was new in this school, but these people at the school used to judge me because of my skin color and used to disclude me and make fun of me,” Alex, a student of about 10, said to classmates as part of a study my colleagues and I conducted. Read More
April 8, 2024
Imagine learning that the home where you grew up has a deed with language prohibiting Black people from buying or renting it.
In Pittsburgh and other cities — even less than a century ago — developers and individual homeowners included restrictions like this one, which appeared in deeds for properties within Charette Homes, a Sewickley subdivision: “No lot or lots in the aforesaid plan of lots, nor any building thereon, shall be used or occupied, or permitted to be used or occupied, by any natural persons other than members of the White or Caucasian Race, except that the premises may be occupied in part by bona fide domestic servants of another Race employed on the premises.” Read More
April 8, 2024
Jane Elliott, an anti-racism activist best known for her April 5, 1968, blue eyes, brown eyes experiment demonstrating that prejudice is a learned behavior, recently condemned Republican efforts to restrict discussions of race in classrooms.
Elliott, whose racism experiment is tied to the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, discussed her feelings about the murder of Dr. King and the larger implications of Republican policy on education with CNN.
Read More
April 8, 2024
Across much of the country, Republican officials are reaching into K-12 classrooms and universities alike to exert control over what can be taught. In Florida, Texas, and many other states, laws now restrict teaching historical facts about race and racism. Book challenges and bans are surging. Public universities are seeing political meddling in the tenure process. Listen Now
April 3, 2024
For years, it was harder for Black patients to secure a coveted spot on the national kidney transplant waitlist because a clinical algorithm was making Black patients appear healthier than they were. After a Penn Medicine researcher exposed the problem in 2019—and showed how it exacerbated racial disparities in kidney disease—a national taskforce recommended removing race from the algorithm’s scoring, a move that has quickly been adopted throughout the country in an effort to reduce racial inequity. Read More
March 11, 2024
A new study of how high school students respond to a program designed to increase the frequency and quality of conversations about race in school finds that the anti-racist intervention did not cause stress or feelings of alienation among study participants. The finding rebuts concerns that anti-racist programs are harmful to children and teens. Read More
February 29, 2024
How should students learn about Black history? That question is the source of controversy and tension across the country, including in St. Louis, where a school board will soon vote on new curricula. The board faced criticism last year for rejecting the Black History and Literature classes taught at the district’s high schools. The board now says African American studies courses in the upcoming school year should be what it calls politically neutral. St. Louis Public Radio’s Chad Davis reports. Read More
February 19, 2024
No one is born racist.
Intolerance in all its forms is a learned behavior.
When a Susquehannock High School student’s alleged use of a racial slur on social media went viral this month, school officials expressed surprise and dismay. Read More
February 19, 2024
The program plans to distribute 1,500 fiction and nonfiction books in the face of continued book bans across the country.
Visit Philadelphia is partnering with the Free Library of Philadelphia and Little Free Library to distribute 1,500 books by Black authors during Black History Month. Read More
February 15, 2024
“People at my school make racist jokes. How do I get them to stop?”
That was a question a sixth-grade boy posed to Dashka Slater, who, since writing a book and a related New York Times article about the turmoil that befell a California community after students created and shared racist material online, speaks to young people about racism. Read More
February 14, 2024
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, is a lovely little town—emphasis on little—with a Sheetz, a Walmart, “and we just got a Marshalls!” says Mia Swales, assistant director of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at Lock Haven University (LHU).
Outside of the university, about 8,500 people live here. About 3 percent of them are Black. Read More
February 12, 2024
During the 2020-21 school year, the number of Black male students involved in disciplinary outcomes at school was disproportionately high compared to their enrollment numbers in kindergarten through grade 12, according to a report the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights published in November that surveyed student discipline in U.S. public schools. Read More
February 6, 2024
In an interview with LIFE magazine in 1963, James Baldwin said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” Read More
January 19, 2024
A school board in southern Pennsylvania has voted to reinstate the district’s old mascot logo portraying a Native American fighter, despite criticism that it’s outdated and culturally insensitive. Read More
January 10, 2024
In recent years, families across the Philadelphia suburbs have faced a barrage of racist incidents. Their experience echoes that of families across the country. Read More
January 10, 2024
The groundswell of calls for bans on the teaching of critical race theory had the effect of diminishing trust in local schools and teachers, new research shows. Read More
January 1, 2024
Retired educators are speaking out when they see incidents of systemic racism.
In the early 1970s, when Christine “Chris” Salamone was a high school student, in Buffalo, N.Y., she relied heavily on the city bus. Read More
A newly elected Upper Dublin school board member resigned Wednesday, after community outcry over a post she shared on social media promoting a webinar that referred to “ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” Read More
A newly elected Upper Dublin school board member resigned Wednesday, after community outcry over a post she shared on social media promoting a webinar that referred to “ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” Read More
Several Bucks County families have joined with civil rights and advocacy groups to file a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of parents and students in Pennridge School District, challenging the district’s allegedly discriminatory policies and its “hostile environment rife with race- and sex-based harassment.” Read More
In the aftermath of the University of Pennsylvania’s president quitting after critiques of her handling of antisemitism on campus, a group of Republican state representatives announced a legislation package promoting education about antisemitism in the commonwealth’s schools. Read More
Controversial Upper Dublin School Board Member Tricia Ebarvia’s career didn’t last through a single board meeting. Read More
The College Board on Wednesday released an updated framework for its new Advanced Placement African American Studies course, months after the nonprofit testing company came under intense scrutiny for engaging with conservative critics. Read More
Civil rights and advocacy groups filed a federal civil rights complaint on Wednesday on behalf of four students, one teacher, and families within the Pennridge School District. The complaint aims to challenge discriminatory policies, practices, and an environment perceived as hostile due to ongoing race- and sex-based harassment. Read More
Monster Liberty”: That’s how the otherwise excellent closed-captioning service in the auditorium at Pennridge High School interpreted “Moms for Liberty,” while one of several dozen citizens who had waited in line to . . . Read More
It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly the questions started coming in. Angelyn Nichols, an administrator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools, thinks it was sometime in early 2021. Read More
Math textbooks axed for their treatment of race; a viral Twitter account directing ire at LGBTQ teachers; a state law forbidding classroom discussion of sexual identity in younger grades; a board book for babies targeted as “pornographic.” Read More
The manufactured outrage perpetuated by dark money networks is both a danger to educators and a distraction from helping students and parents. Read More
During the 15-minute observation period after receiving his COVID-19 shot this March, Terry Harris pulled out his phone. There in the Vashon High School gymnasium, during a vaccination drive for St. Louis–area teachers, …” Read More
An NBC News analysis finds at least 165 local and national groups are trying to disrupt or block lessons on race and gender. NBC reporter Tyler Kingkade explores who is waging this fight, and why. Read More
February 16, 2016
After decades in the political wilderness, school integration seems poised to make a serious comeback as an education reform strategy.
Sixty-two years ago, Brown v. Board of Education held that separate schools for black and white students are inherently unequal. Fifty years ago, the evidence in the congressionally authorized Coleman Report put a twist on Brown, suggesting that socioeconomic school integration could increase academic achievement more than any other school strategy. But when racial school desegregation began to be seriously pursued in the early 1970s, the implementation was often clumsy. Federal judges ordered school children to travel across town to attend schools to achieve racial balance, giving parents no say in the matter. Families rebelled. Read More