Both public and private school teachers and librarians could face up to a year in jail over books

A new book ban goes into effect in Missouri, and librarians are already being forced to pull books from the shelves because of it. The book ban—which pretty obviously violates both intellectual freedom and education opportunities—actually makes it a crime for educators and librarians to give people under 18 books that contain sexually explicit material. Now, as Daily Kos has continued to cover, these concerns, in practice, tend to only be used against books by and about LGBTQ+ people; the same way that queer media is accused of being “inappropriate” or “obscene” but it’s all just fine if it’s about cisgender, heterosexual people.

This new law applies to both public and private schools and essentially puts the onus on the individual adult to decide if the material they’re providing can be considered art or of anthropological significance or not. It also isn’t supposed to apply to material used in sex ed or science classes. The law applies to images, like in graphic novels, as well as images used in movies, PowerPoints, and so on. The law doesn’t differentiate between levels of appropriateness for say, kindergarten versus high school. It’s all the same.

Violators of the law could face up to one year in jail and $2,000 in fines. 

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