of liberty and freedom with spirit into the mainland and that clearly wasn't happening but anytime there's any kind of demonstration the guys in beijing seem to see color revolution.they were seared by the collapse of the soviet union, arab spring. some of the things that have happened in central asia so they just have to black down any kind of uprising but i think the bigger point is what china did in hong kong is the kind of thing it's trying to do in lithuania today. it's trying to do with australia and that it's done with the philippines. country after country that steps out of line as far as china is concerned and of course we can talk about taiwan is going to be hit hard and the chinese are seemingly picking quarrels to use their language with a variety of places and adjust i think using a degree of coercion and trying to limit the ability of those of us in the free world or open society to be able to just

have discussions like this. ifchina has their way we wouldn't be having this discussion . technically they say the national security law applies everywhere and if they wanted to they could come after you and me. >> you can watch the full program at booktv.org. just search mark clifford or the title of his book, today hong kong tomorrow the world . >>.. . i am veryng happy to be here wh the wonderful ranking member of

the subcommittee members. in 1943 in west virginia versus barnett the supreme court struck down the violation of the first amendment stating if there's any sixth star in our constellation it's that no official shall subscribe what will be orthodox in matters of politics, religion nationalism or other matters for citizens to confess therein. in a case called tinker versus des moines school district with struck down the suspension from middle school for refusing to remove her black armband in n protest of the vietnam war, either students nor teachers shed their first amendment rights at the schoolhouse gates. in 1982, most relevant to our hearing today, the supreme court rejected the effort by a school board in new york state to strip

objectionable books from publicb school libraries. members had gone to a conference promoting censorship of offensive and older books and came back with the target hit list. a hit list that is now familiar to us. including slaughterhouse five, best short stories by negro editors and anonymous author black boy by richard wright. a compilation, the boardns actually overrode the censorship committee. purging only two books from the schools and censored nine of them. claiming that the removal of books at the school library affected a form of political and ideological thought control, totally antithetical to the first amendment of the

constitution. nominated to the court by republican president eisenhower's are announced the judgment of the court and joined justice stevens. nominated the court to president nixon and justice nominated to the court by president johnson. this was a decision dominated by supreme court justices who had been nominated to the presidents which is something that we need to think about. my hope is everything we talk about today will transcend the traditional party lines. board of education versus pico finding the constitution protects not just theo right to speak and write but the right tr receive information and ideas. the first amendment plays a central role in affording the public access to discussion, debate and the dissemination of information and ideas. freedom of inquiry the court

ruled extensor school libraries. the selective removal of books from school libraries because someone considers the content offensive directly and sharply implicate students free speech and thought in school libraries the regime of voluntary inquiry hold sway. the answer to books is content or viewpoints you oppose or even deplore. check out this powerful logic. not read them or write a negative review writing your own book and answer. the first amendment i used to tellam is abraham lincoln's golu apple of liberty. everybody just wants to take one bite out of it. wanting to censor it. someone hate hate speech about gate people. someone wants to censor speech about the love lives. someone wants to censor mark

twain's huckleberry finn because it uses the edward. they think it means babies can w be racists. everybody wants to take one or two bites out of the apple. if we allow all of those bites, there is no apple left. the freedom of speech disappears it is to learn to tolerate this piece your door as well as what you disagree with. this is incumbent upon people living in a free democratic society. if we cancel or censor everything that people findy offensive nothing will be left. everybody is offended by something and that is why other people's level of offense cannot be the metric of defining whether your rights are my rights are vaporized. there is a famous story from the middle of the last century, someone said it should be shut down because it offended him.

my parents came to america in order to be offensive and not to be thrown in jail for it. national library week at a time to celebrate intellectual curiosities, scholarship, freedom of inquiry and free expression. they are under attack again. in 2021 the american library association office for intellectual freedom recorded the highest numbers of challenges to library books and its 20 years tracking this data. 729 efforts to censor nearly 1600 bucks. in texas, just one of these attempts to censor books implemented has initiated the systematic review of at least 850 books and every school district in the state. over 1000 public schools in the lone star state.

this challenge will require tens of thousands of teachers, librarians and in this traders to spend hundreds of thousands of hours reviewing the books to implement a regime of censorshia at a time where school resources already stretched thin and states across the country are facing teacher and staff rgshortages. the vast majority of books are mandatory are part of the curriculum. they are books of choice.sh students can pull them off the shelves if they want to check them out or they can ignore them entirely. what books are being targeted, some old are back like catcher in the rye. native son, huckleberry finn. let'ss see. also a bunch of these books that i brought here, seahorse. we will hear from the great ruby bridges whose book ruby bridges goes to school which has been the target of censorship moves the blue aside by toni morrison

who is a nobel prize-winning author. they could's book about racism has been targeted for censorship a book called haired love. the infamous antiracist baby book. i little legends, exceptional men in black history and finally, little dreamers, visionary women around the world. these are some of the most common books that are being targeted right now. obviously it is a legitimate subject for parents, teachers parents and school boards to talk which is the best age-appropriate curricular choices for different age groups and grades. this is what educators do. families, parents and experts in the decision-making process all across the country. that normal curricular library schedule is different fromus whipping people up into a moral panic over the use of this or

that word or passage. fashions and censorship change. look books were censored because they were subversive. uncle tom's cabin which was seized, censored and burned as propaganda. many books are being targeted for censorship these days simply because they address racism or white supremacy as historic or socio- issues because the author is yay or a person of color oron some other objectionable reason. i wrote a book which was censored called weed the students. forgive me, i correct myself. itd has not been censored yet bt targeted for removal from the

schools in texas. we do students was sponsored by the supreme court own historical society. it analyzes the freedoms of young read him in public schools it looks at a whole bunch of cases that affect kids in public schools like censorship of papers and yearbooks and locker searches and drug testing and i'm certain now that it must be the first book ever sponsored by the supreme court's own historical society which is now being targeted for censorship. i only wish that the aspiring censors would read my discussion of board of education versus pico at page 59 in my book before they censor it because it tells them everything they need to know about how it is illegitimate to strip schools -- books from school libraries because someone disagrees withav that. the books on the poster boards have all been targeted for censorship. this is your time by ruby

bridges, a remarkable figure in the american civil rights movement and we have the honor hearing from today has been a challenge and targeted for censorship. because it says a book describing how a little girl who was one of the first to integrate public schools in her native louisiana in the midst of a racist backlash may make light children feel uncomfortable. this radically understated the powers of empathy, compassion and solidarity that all children are most children have and are capable of developing. it also suggests that the actual lived experiences of people should be suppressed. if learning of their experiences would make other people uncomfortable. a a far-fetched unworkable unjut principle that cuts against the fundamental american idea of free expression. all right. with that, i am going to turn it over for your opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i should have brought my book. >> i brag about your book all the time. t >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm pleased to have the opportunity to highlight the importance. k-12 curriculum serves our students well. the first amendment guarantees right of freedom of speech to all americans in the first amendment stated that congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. reasonable time, place and manner restrictions in very limited circumstances. the government cannot police the speech of its citizens even when it is disagreeable or repugnant. sometimes we want to know what they have to say. we do not punish thought criminals in this country and less you are mean character. freedom of speech is not just a legal mandate enshrined in our constitution. it's an element to democracy. this ensures all fields in the

marketplace of ideas. public institutions of higher education are bound to abide by the first amendment prohibitiont on restrictions on freedom of speech and often in this country we see a tax on that very freedom. public universities and colleges frequently run afoul by enforcing broad or overly broad speech codes or by chilling speech across college campuses using bias response teams to investigate thought criminals. disturbing campaigns on these campuses to dispel students, fire faculty or does invite speakers that hold views that are considered to go against the progressive. coddling young adults. at a time when their educational careers where they should be exposed to a variety of ideas and perspective. progressive activists shut down speech on college campuses they are trying to hyper exposed young children who are still learning to read, write, add and

subtract. i can remember a story when my kids were in elementary schoolha and i was driving them home. i pick them up from the carpool line and they had a government lesson on government democracy versus socialism versus communism. i asked him which one was best. they said socialism. i pulled off on the closest exit and had a conversation about the differences in and they walked out of that conversation saying, no, mommy, democracy is the best form of government for the united states of america. devices and radical ideology such as race and essentialism. the conduct of a sexual nature that is not appropriate often times for very young children. all children should be taught the academic skills they need to succeed along with a history of our country, the good, the bad and the ugly. a we must also teach our children about the problematic chapters of our history. a

we must also teach them about the heroes. one of those heroes today is joining our hearing today. ruby bridges. a civil rights icon and author who made history as a 6-year-old girl courageously braving a hostile crowd to integrate in elementary school. stories that should be taught in our schools from harriet tubman who rescued 750 slaves in one night in beaufort county south carolina to joseph p rainey who was the first african-americanpr to represent in the u.s. house of representatives who represented south carolina's first congressional district, the seed that i sit in today. public school should exercise discretion to decide what is included and what books toel include in their libraries especially for young elementary school students. no child attending our public a school should be subject to indoctrination or exposed to radical ideologies while theydu are still building the

foundation of their education. we ought to be teaching critical thinking skills. faced with open discourse and of course our high school students even if they are not going to college student should be prepared to enter the workforce when they graduate. ii think all the witnesses for appearing today. i look forward to robust conversations and working together to conserve that r freedom for every single person. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you for a thoughtful opening statement. before i introduce our witnesses and swear them in, america just released a report this morning finding july 1 of last year to march 31 of this year, there were 1586 book man's that were implemented across 86 school districts and 26 different states. 41% were prominent secondary of

color. 22% directly address race and racism in 33% explicitly address lgbtq issues. so though that is not a majority, that is a lot of where the action is and of course there are the traditional targets that we know of like catcher in the rye and huckleberry finn. i want to introduce our first panel of witnesses who are all high school students. olivia who is a student from york county pennsylvania. we will hear from christina ellis who was a student from york county pa. the witnesses will be unmuted so we can swear that man. please stand and raise yourha right hand if you can do that. do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to deal is a truth and nothing but the truth so help you god. they have all answered and affirmative. thank you.

good morning and thank you for this amazing opportunity. i am a senior. a member of the lgbtq plus community and activist and secretary in social media advisor that per rail on school district in pennsylvania. an article published by local news said they banned an extensive list ofcl resources including books, articles, movies and more all written by lgbtq plus authors or about lgbtq plus awareness and l history. the book specifically included materials such as i am enough, i am rosa parks and my story for standing up my girls rights. all of this would help to not only aid by embracing themselved and their identity, but would also spread awareness and educate all students on the importance of diversity.

when this list was pushed out i was appalled. central being the most second diverse district in the county prided itself on diversity.t silence by voices and announced that their identity was not welcome.vi christina ellis the vice president, renée ellis our communications director and our artistic director and our amazing advisors we stood up to this active discrimination.t in the beginning we organized small peaceful protests that were located outside the high school. these caught the eye of local press and news outlets. this was no longer between a few students. our stories voices and messages were broadcast and expressed through articles. media coverage help the community receive 3000 books from the list to hand out for ta community members and held to community process take place. it is been a hard journey loving

myself as a member of this community. i've been surrounded by amazing people that help me through and offered advice. not everyone is as lucky. many kids find refuge and going to school and being within an inclusive community. education on inclusion slips away the safety does, too. i have heard slurs being thrown around, made fun of, verbally abused and more. it is important to teach inclusion and equality. it's important to have representation. i deserve to walk into my schooe library and find a book like someone like me. education on inclusion is important and necessary. without it those kids i came to school for safety and acceptance will no longer have that safe spot. too many kidsms have attempted suicide, armed themselves or been verbally or physically abuse for who they are. too many kids are alone and don't have that safe haven. books that represent them offer them comfort in open

conversations provide that safe place for all students. it is important to teach the students inclusion so they can save a person's life just by showing them compassion and respect. we cannot force lgbtq kids into situations where the only time they care about their community and themselves are when their rights are being debated between students. we have a place in this world and in this community. if i would've had open discussions, representation and education i would've been able to embrace and love myself a lot earlier on. rather than sitting fearfully with my thoughts and feelings i would've been able to learn what my feelings mean and it's okay to be me. silence is deafening. these books help to break through the silence and allow n children to flourish. kids need to see themselves portrayed in a positive light. provided space where they can celebrate who they are. give them who they are to help them love themselves for who they are. don'tyo silence the voices that are finally beginning to be

heard. thank you. >> thank you very much for your thoughtful testimony. now miss alice, you are recognized foror your five minus >> good morning. i am a senior in york pennsylvania. to start off i would like to extend my gratitude to chairman, ranking member and members of the subcommittee who made it possible for olivia and i tohe come and speak today. i would like to discuss the book/resource band that divide our school district. books such as i am enough, -- by dr. seuss. the president of peru mentioned in an article a local newspaper divisive resources that were banned. it did not take long for us and countless others to realize

these resources targeted the voice and representation of communities, authors and creators. we knew this was in our district as the second most diverse district in your county. creating an executive board. we created our first initiative to peacefully protest. every morning until the band was reversed and that is what we did and 70 plus students and even staff at the high school black lives matter and diversity belongs in education. soon enough our presence was recognized. news anchors like fox news and cnn picked up our story after all of our news coverage as of september 20, 2021. we did not rejoice at this long because we realized that there is so much more work that needs to be done. we will continue to strive for equality and diversity. not only in our classrooms, but within our community.st

the reason why i stood against my district span is because i do want future african-american kids to go through some of the things i went going up. here is my personal story. a teacher put a documentary on about slavery. some kids with turn around and start me.ar the only black girl in the classroom. i had fear of looks and snarky comments from peers because food was foreign to them. the majority of my schooling straightening my hair so i would not stand out. i wanted to blend in and not be different. i did not want random people touching my hair without my permission. i still encounter people who think it's okay for them to run their hands through my hair. it isho crucial. these books should not be up for debate. a slideshow presentation telling kids to be kind is not enough.

it is not okay to joke about the way students choose to dress ork pack for lunch. this can educate kids on various cultures and way of life. we need to rely on our trained educators to teach these difficult and hard topics. kids will learn to approach their peers not from a place of educational ignorance but a place of compassion and understanding. people that want to pay attention to others and not only themselves. banning books from thesequ backgrounds silences their voices and erases their history. arguably taking away their righa to express themselves. these are words on the page that have a power to change a cold heart to warm. it is education. >> thank you very much to all the students for your really powerful and illuminating testimony. the first panel is now excused.r

please send our regards to your families and teachers. tell them we are very proud of what you have done. we will now welcome the second panel. i want to introduce our second panel of witnesses and i will begin to introduce them as they enter and are seated. samantha hall who was a librarian from lancaster county pennsylvania. then we will hear from mindy freeman who is a parent. then we will hear from doctor jonathan who was a vice president of academic affairs at the american council of trustees and alumni. next we will hear from jessica berg who was a teacher in virginia not far from where we are and last but not least a witness who really needs no elaborate introduction ruby bridges who is a civil rights luminary and an author. the witnesses will please be

unmuted so that we can swear them in if everybody would rise and raise your right hands. do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give us a truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god. let the record show that all the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.s thank you. without objection. your written statements will be put into the record so every word you want to submit unofficially for the congressional record, but with that, you are now recognized for your verbal testimony. we ask you to sum it up in five minutes, if you can do that. >> good morning and thank you, chairman. thank you for the opportunity to speak on such an important issue. we are h here because books have been questioned, challenged and band at record rates this schoor year. there are students watching near and far.

in fact i brought some of them with me as support and notes they have given to me. administrators have made hasty decisions, school board members have jumped to conclusions based on out of content excerpts and scrambled to play catch up to fight for our students rights.s. communities lose the voice that the book represents. measuring the damage of lost voices is daunting and longitudinal. we can measure the rates. many can directly correlate 15 mental health crisis to feelings of discontent, loneliness and lack of belonging. elthese are the feelings that arise we believe we are aloneng and what we are experiencing in these feelings can be especially brutal in isolating in adolescence. the ability to learn about and appreciate the diversity perspective and opinions is crucial to gaining a sense of belonging. we can gain visibility to our access to books and other

resources. this is why a singular reaction to a book should never result id the immediate removal of a resource but instead be the basis for our conversation to understand the purpose of a library and the supportive resources that librarians offer. if a student react strongly to a book it could be the start of a conversation with her family ant trusted adult or a trusted adult about the topics or cause a reaction. during the eight years i've been a librarian i've seen the publishing industry react and support to the need of adolescents to books representing thought and experience. bookss have made a difference in our kids well-being, ability tom think more broadly, the more innovative and be more empathetic. we see this in the many students standing up for what they believe in.nd those students realized early they have a voice and their voice matters. school librarians have dedicated our careers to responding to our students needs and it motivates us to work hard as we keep our curated collections balance.y

we worked tirelessly to provide a sanctuary for students in the library, the place that they feel safe. feeling safe, however, is not always the same as feeling comfortable. growth does not necessarily happen when we are comfortable. it definitely will not occur when we are stagnant or uninterested or except the way things have always been done. growth is uncomfortable but it builds grit and determination. to learn is to grow. when we are in an environment that fosters open into conversation the discomfort is overweight. it is not fostered when we start making individual monolithic or one-sided decisions. especially without trained librarians and put about books based on out of context reading. we are limiting growth. we are stifling progress and we are acting in the most undemocratic way possible. adhering to loud minority viewpoint and not making space for all voices to be heard is not progress.

librarians urge everyone to take a minute to find out why it makes us uncomfortable. what it is trying to teach us andd what we are resisting to learn the .... .... while thosee lonely. it seemed like everything was happening behind closed doors and many of us many of us have found the strength and space to speak out on the injustices of self-censoring and outright book banning. since those brave moments the army has grown parents students community members public librarians store owners authors lawyers teachers and local politicians and join the fight. librarians are in it for the long game. we fight so students can see themselves and what they read, find what they need

when they need it and have a safe place to do so. we don't have the answers willhelp them find someone who gedoes . your democracy and our students well-being hinge on the access young people have to fully representative resources created by librarians and teachers with the education, expertise and experience to handle this work. without institutionscurated by professionals to encapsulate a wide range of historical perspectives we have no history . with our location staffed by trained librarians we have to inform students. without safe places to read think and discuss we have no future. we librarians know firsthand our students orare world problem solvers. through our students curiosity ioknowledge is generated and innovation occurs. that is growth, that is progress, that is democracy. >> thank you very much miss holmes and you are recognized for your testimony.

>> thank you chairman, ranking member read and members of the subcommittee. my name is mindy freeman and my pronouns are she her. i live with my spouse 25 years ago. i'm speaking from the heart as a person who loves their children as a former elementary school teacher and as someone whocares deeply about the education of our youth . i'm not a political person. i've been a registered republican and a registered democrat. i didn't even know what the house oversight committee was until last week and i'm here in the most political place on earth. this is 22 and despite all the major issues needing our nation's attention book banning and censorship is a subject we are now forced to be tackling and an attack on public education, diversity of thought,inclusion of people and ability of citizens to consume real authentic stories of who we

are. books have a critical role in people's lives . my youngest child lily is a 15-year-oldsophomore honor student at our local public high school . she asks, sings, dances and draws beautifully. she loves to hang out with her friend,spend time with her grandparents and binge watch shows with me . you know, kids stuff. lily also happens to be a female of trans-experience. she is proud to be trans-and we are proud of her. the able to be visible for others and seeing herself in the books she reads is so important. i want to be clear if there is one soundbite from my appearance here today let it be this one. brnotebook made my child become transgender any more than a book could have turned her eyesfrom brown to blue. let me tell tell you about louise journey. as soon as she could recognize yourself in the

mirror the person looking back at her was not the person she was . but now presenting people looking back at her did not align with her being. as lily was growing up during her younger years she presented in what would be considered a more feminine way . as someone who had never known a transgender person this behavior made my spouse and i question what was going on with lily chbut we did not discourage her from doing the things she loved. in early elementary lily lacked the words and confidence to describe what she was feeling. as school activities began to separate boys from girls this only frustrated her. in fourth grade when boys and girlswere separated to learn about what was going on in theirbodies during puberty lily began to panic . after sharing her feelings with my ldoldest two daughters she came to my spouse and me. we did not have the knowledge of everything else . especially trans-related to what we did know is that we loved our child and we would support her no matter what

and this is when our learning journey began. we shared with lily's fifth grade teacher what lily was going through and her teacher brought to our attention alice gino's book george, now melissa and award-winning children's novel about a trans fourth-grader and lily had the option to read it. we appreciated the visibility this provided to lily as well as the support not only by the teacher but by the school for having age-appropriate books accessible on the shelves. two years later in seventh grade her social studies teacher made it easy for kids like lily and students who want to learn about their lgbtq+ classmates to check out books. these books feltlily's friends better understand what she and others were going through. still middle school was a trial and high school hasn't been easy either . three teenagers, two from her

school are charged with threatening and targeting lily simply because she is transgender . it's no wonder lgbtq+ youth have a higher rate of depression and suicide than straightcounterparts . having age-appropriate lgbtq+ books on our library shelves can contribute to an affirming and safe environment in our public schools. adding and censoring books especially lgbtq+ books divisiveness harm and hateinstead of kindness , education and awareness. schools are places of learning and when you take away access oothe books it's a discriminatory practice. banning and censoring books benefits nobody. it's a practice which limits freedoms of speech and expression and facilitates exclusionary practices. i've never lobbied on capitol hill, run for political office and i do not sit on the school board. i do not plan to either . i'm a parent who knows how

having access to lgbtq+ books in our schools played a positive role in my daughter's life and we all of us need to ensure all of our children continue to have access to diverse books in their school libraries. thank you so much. >> thanks for joining usin the most political place on earth . and doctor, you are now recognized for your five minutes. >> it's an honor to address the subcommittee oncivil rights and civil liberties . thank you members of the subcommittee. for the last g26 years the american council of trustees has been working to protect du academic freedom and free expression in higher education. we're grateful for this opportunity to address these issues.

so that shows conclusively the problem of academic censorship has reached crisis levels. instances of speaker dis-invitation on the basis of viewpoint, intimidating d shutdowns are a routine feature of campus life today with documented examples running well into the hundreds . nonsense of survey research data than straight the current climate chills free and open discourse to take one of many examples of forthcoming acts of surveys of students at 12 liberal arts colleges found 59 percent report they are somewhat or very uncomfortable publicly disagreeing with the professor.ai 32 percent said their administration was very or extremely clear that free speech was protected. 54 percent said they felt censored themselves occasionally and 41 percent is always or sometimes acceptable to shut down a speaker. students self-censorship appears to be linked to low levels of ideological diversity among professors, among students reported self censoring often 60 percent said that increasing the faculties viewpoint diversity would improve the climate for expression. studies of viewpoint diversity oratios

reaching as high as 60 to 1. available evidence suggests these disparities are not accidental. 55 percent of academic philosophers and 38 percent of social psychologists admit to some level of willingness to discriminate against conservatives and the faculty hiring process. hundreds of universities have gone so far as to build bio response teams and students who use them to report on others for watching ben shapiro, for ablest comments hand.on the other they reported faculty for giving a wrong look and young republicans for every instance of wrong fake. all this in the hope of setting up a burdensome investigation that will be elreputation damaging even where the speech is protected. universities that encourage students to inform on their peers creates an anti-intellectual dynamic

that is reminiscent of a soviet police state where nobody knows what is safe to say or who is safe to talk to. two appeals courts have revealed support teams are creating on a chilling effect yet hundreds remain in operation. since this hearing is concerned i'd like to make three points. first k-12 schools are funded by taxpayers because their mission is to advance the public interest . regular standards should balance the concerns of families, lord officials while leveraging the expertise of educators. not long ago school districts were removing to kill a mockingbird because of the n-word which features prominently. that mean mark twain and harper lee have their books banned, in these communities made a judgment about curriculum value however much many may disagree. conversation about public school curriculum should be occurring at the state and s local 11. the framers understood educating children is a paramount responsibility. it can be delegated to others

but is precisely the kind of function that should be kept close to the people and in a federal democracy local communities will settle on different policies and teach different books. that is the essence of representative government. third it is the responsibility of public school systems to teach materials that are age-appropriate. the american library association listed the top 10 most challenged books helps da us understand what the real issues are today. the first sand second entries on the list gender queer and lawn boy are so graphic parents reading them at school board meetings repeatedly said their content is so obscene. members ool board judge content too hot for adults to handle it isn't censorship to remove them from school libraries. it's their responsibility. if public school systems were systematically targeting the writings of civil rights leaders in response to parental or political pressure i would not be here

testifying today. as justice barry blackman has written school officials may nremove books for the purpose of restricting access to political ideas or social disgust. that is not what is happening in the majority of these cases. these books are being challenged generally because they contain age inappropriate sexual content that is not necessary to create a working environment or uniquely well-suited to promote diversity of thought and in conclusion the most serious threats to free speech and academic contexts are occurring in higher education today, not k-12. self-censorship is endemic, , viewpoint discrimination is the norm and students and in faculty are targeted by bias response teams for the political content of their speech . >> thank you for your thoughtful testimony and you are now recognized for your five minutes . >> thank you asking the subcommittee for inviting me to speak on thisimportant issue. my name is ajessica burke , a high school gender studies teacher in virginia where i live with my husband and my two extraordinary daughters.

teaching is not a profession i planned on but there is not a day that goes by i'm not thankful for whatever fates led me into the classroom because it's been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. however this past december along with teachers across the nation i was on the precipice of leaving the profession because of what political groups and politicians have done to education. the crusade against critical thinking has instilled fear against teachers. fear for speaking up, being fired for doing what we know to be right,fear of receiving death threats from members of our own community and the challenge to our professionalism , our expertise , our compassion and empathy for all our students has cracked the will of underpaid and overworked teachers. today i hope to give a very brief insight as to what we educators and english teachers aim to achieve in the classroom but more than that i wanted to share words

from my students because there's is the voice that's often forgotten in these discussions. the one thing i say year-to-year is the letters my students write and rereading them i was reminded the biggest thing students take away from their time in english is the safe space created within the classroom wall and the books that play a pivotal role in their lives reading them two lessons that extend beyond the classroom wall . but these are the books you are banning. books offer a mirror to readers so they can see themselves reflected in some way be it their gender, their race, their culture, their identity or experience and it makes them feel less alone in the world. when they see themselves reflected students do not feel erased and maintain their self-efficacy. the belief that their voice matters. and when i think about the books frequently being challenged, the only connection i see between them is they are the books that give voice to the most marginalized in our society.

a few years ago i taught a brilliant young woman who almost missed her chance to attend college because she didn't yet understand the power of her voice. in a letter she wrote i will always remember you. you have taught me so many lessons inside and outside the classroom. you've changed my life because you showed me during a difficult time that my voice matters and i should stand up for what i believe in . but the political groups and politicians out there banning books don't want that. they don't want everyone to feel like they have a voice because the status quo is predicated on silence. and not only is banning these stories and censoring history preventing students from being able to find their voice but it is negatively impacting my ability as an educator to connect with my students in a meaningful way. the ence into these life lessons that leave a lasting

impact on students 's stories . as one student wrote, this bird probably a life lesson through her passion for the world of novels. she lets us explorethe world outside the bubble we rarely escape. this lesson is one i will never forget . that is the power of books. they offer students a window to see the world beyond themselves and the hopes that they understand what divides us as humans is infinitesimal in the face of what unites us. these are the books you are banning ndand it is a fallacy when groups ban these books under the guise of parental rights. i am a parent. we have rights in our student education but that parents teacher team has been broken by the divisiveness of the moment. the loud angry subset of political parents no longer communicate with teachers and instead go straight to the school board and yell. if you do not want your child to read a book that is absolutely fine.but it does

not give you the right to make that decision for every other student in the county or across the nation who might find a lifeline in the very book you ibad. i understand wanting to protect kids. i want to protect my two daughters fiercely and for as long as i can but i also want to prepare them for the real world so when i am not there to be there shield i want to know that i have armed them with the sword of every story and impenetrable power of knowledge that just might give them the ability to survive and through my work as an educator i hope to make the world my daughters will head into a better one story and one student at a time. and it was a former student owho defined what we aim to do as educators so eloquently when she said mrs. burke, you

are the best, most inspirational teacheri've ever had. feyou taught me more than grammar and writing school skills. you prepared me to seek understanding from a wide variety of ouperspectives . i'm better equipped to process life because of the time i spent in your class and i can't thank you enough. maybe if we all were prepared to seek understanding from a wide variety of perspectives we too would be better equipped to process life and all its gorgeous complexity . thank you for your time that was outstanding and even with 36 seconds left over so well done. now i'm going to recognize myself for five minutes of questions. i'm sorry. you've been so patient with us. we've got the great ruby bridges with us and you are recognized for your five minutes, thank you . >> good morning mister chairman and mrs. may, members of congress and the subcommittee. i am indeed honored for this opportunity to speak on this

important subject . when i first heard about a possible book than including the targeting of my book, my initial thought was to avoid responding altogether because i thought it didn't deserve more attention and the effort would naturally subside. however as these bands have somehow gain even more momentum i feel it is now important to speak up. i cannot understand why we are banning books. my books are written to bring people together. why would they be banned? what's the real question is why are we banning any books at all? surely we are better than this. we are the united states of america with freedom of speech. in every book i've written i have purposely highlighted and lifted up those human beings as americans who were

seeking the best version of our country like supreme court justice thurgood marshall who helped to win the landmark case that set me on this journey and a six-year-old walking to the door of this all-white elementary school in 1960 i wanted my readers to know i did not walk alone. i was protected by a dedicated federal marshal commissioned by a sitting president of the united states. i was nurtured and taught by a compassionate teacher. mentor by a world-renowned child psychologists, all of whom were white by the way and mentioned in these very same books that some wish to ban. they became a part of my support system along with a supportive community, my village. my courageous family and friends so when i share my experiences, my story in these books i share our

shared history. good, bad and ugly. as a six-year-old child i had no idea i was taking a historic walk.rumy parents weresharecroppers raised in mississippi , not activists. to then education was a lottery they cannot afford. they only knew that they wanted better for their own children. mother felt education would provide that better life. father who was a decorated career war that. rightfully so. remembering his own experiences in a segregated branch of the military, he said he was always seen and treated as just another colored soldier. war hero or not. needless to say, this historic walk put them at odds with one another. even though the same walk helped to change the face of education in this country and i became the poster child for

the civil rights movement. my father never lived to see the change this walk helpedto promote. as a six-year-old i had so many questions . what happeneden? how did it happen to me? wife at school? sadly, no one including my parents could provide answers or they didn't want to. history happened and it was over. being six with limited capacity i often wondered if it was all just a dream. how was i to ever understand er my own place in history? m this was a part of my identity and yet no one around me was equipped to iddiscuss it or maybe they just didn't want to. they didn't want to share it with me. i was always sick.

let's face it, there was no black history month then and the textbooks were obsolete then and they are near obsolete today. i learned the full impact of my own story at the age of 17 when a reporter showed up on my doorstep with the norman were on rockwell painting which depicted mywalk . until that moment i thought my experience in 1960 was contained to my own neighborhood, in my own community, on my own street. i questioned if it really even matter at all. but finally now i understood my role in history. and it didn't come from the textbook. use to teach me that very samehistory unfortunately . the truth is that rarely children of color are in these textbooks we are forced to use. i write because i want them to understand the contributions their ancestors

have made to our great country. whether that contribution was made as slaves or volunteers. my books are written to inspire a new generation to contribute to building this free country for indeed there is much work to be done. so i think if we're going to have a conversation about banning books, then i say that conversation is long overdue. let's have it. but it must include all books . if we are to ban books from being too truthful then surely we must band those books that distort or omit the truth. i do emphasize empathize with patients face when answering questions thatthey do not

feel equipped to answer. remember, my parents once stood in those very same shoes. even when my own grandson came to me with a book about the united statespresidents, their names and their faces asking me mommy , do you have to be white to be president ? as a grandparent that truth was hard for me to look at . i had to be creative in my response. while also being truthful because my grandson needed to feel good about the person he sees in the mirror as well. my response was no, of course not you don't have to be white to be president. they're waiting on you. you can be the first. black president of theunited states . that held him that day for a while so you see i encourage parents and teachers to be creative without lying of course. because our children deserve the truth. the truth is pure. the truth is good and we all know ththe thing the truth south shall set us free. as i say that teachers should be given theflex ability to teach . we must unite the hands of these very qualified

educators. >> miss bridget we are just over the time but i'm going to come right to you with my question and i hope you'll be able to complete the thought if that's all right . so we will now begin questioning and i will go right to you to finish that point and ask you another question . >> books celebrate our shared history and they should not be banned. their pages must be embraced and preserved for all. history is sacred and should not be changed or altered in any way and in closing i'd like to say the purpose of my book is to expand education to all children no matter their color of skin . i write to remind children we should include both our truth and progress and our right to show them that we are truly better together than apart.

in order for us to be the united states of america we have to live up to our name. we all must be united . ladies, all of them need to see themselves in our books. representation doesn't just matter, it's vital. when children read about presidents at the white house they should also be able to read about the little six-year-old girl who made a difference . that little girl was me ruby bridges and i am proud of my story as is thousands and thousands of kids not just in this country but around the world. >> thank you so much, i'm holding right now the famous norman rockwell painting, the rendition of it that isin your book . which is so wonderful and is er indeed an iconic. your book has been objected to. people want to censor your akbook because they say it may make white children feel uncomfortable. which struck me as just as our given that you have a eabeautiful tribute to the

teacher you love the most i take it, mrs. henry with her picture and she was white. a picture of you witha bunch of kids who are whitefriends. a picture of john steinbeck who wrote a beautiful essay about you , a tribute to eleanor rooseveltand so on . i guess they were rubbed the wrong way by this . it must be the most clean-cut photo i've ever seen of a racist protester. we won't go to school with negroes and i imagine they had to find search far and r wide to find a use of that n-word as opposed to the other one but what is your reaction to people who say your book doesn't belong in a library about the civil rights period because it might make white kids feel uncomfortable. do you thinkit will make white kids feel uncomfortable and what's your response ? >> my response is i have

thousands and thousands of kids that write to me constantly who lift up my book and talk about how they have learned so much from my own story. i believe that yes, there are some parents who might find the truth very hard to look at as i mentioned in my talk. i understand that but we cannot hide the truth from our kids.it is history and history issacred and we shouldn't change or alter it in any way . >> thank you for writing this beautiful book ruby bridges goes to school and thank you for defending everybody's academic and intellectual freedom . i want to comenext to miss all . you're a library and and a teacher .and first i wonder if you could concretely tell us what has been your experience of this new wave of attempts

to ban books, sensor books, challenge books and so on how has it affected you in your work ? >> i think it all stems from a misunderstanding of what libraries are. what thepurpose of libraries are and what librarians can do and how books and up on shelves .those who are upset if they could understand the policy developments and all the pieces that go into curating these collections i think a lot of the misunderstandings could be avoided. >> miss bird. >> so to my experience as a classroom teacher and has not changed anything because these books that are being banned are choice. they're not being forced on any student. there books in the library. the curriculum is very different from the books that exist in rthe library so the thing is you can decide for your own child not to have

them read the book. you don't get to make that choice for every other child in my school and my school district or in the nation and in fact we all had a commonality in the great gatsby which is a book on the curriculum. we are all currently reading, even lily is doing a quiz on it today so there's 2 very different sets of books they're talking about, a curriculum and a library of choice. >> i'm happy to write you a note if you need one. that might help, not sure. i'm going to come to mister donald for his five minutes of questioning. >> witnesses, thanks for being here. by way of background i served in florida's legislature and was a chair of two education subcommittees. i wrote legislation about providing people who live within the county the ability to review all material whether it's classroom or library material and all taxpayers where there they are parents should have an ability to review that material.

and examine it because they are the ones that pay for its . miss bird i know you're from virginia. i will describe for you the procurement process in florida. any material whether it's in the libraryor a classroom is approved by the state board of education . the state board goes through their material procurements and gives a list of what they view as being responsible material for school system. atlas then goes down to the school districts. school district administrators review the list and provide a list of what they feel should be acquired. the board then votes on recommendations in order to provide the dollars to purchase those materials and that is what ends up in the classroom or in the library. there might be a slight variation of that with the library but by and large the administrators ring a list of materials to be acquired. school boardsvote on them and

that's how they are required, is that true ? >> yes, to my knowledge. >> is different in pennsylvania, there's a lot more local control. >> that's fair but can we agree for the premise of what t we're discussing that school boards are the ones that authorize purchases. >> yes. >> does the school board have the legal authority taxing authority to decide what goes in andout of libraries in classrooms ? >> it's my understanding school board policy places the superintendent in a position to delegate those decisions e. >> does the elected school board have a responsibility to decide on the funding to keep material in classrooms? >> i think in terms of loudoun county we have a board of supervisors which approves our budget and again it's our superintendent who has decisions in both staffing and allocation of resources . >> so o when material is

allowed to come in or there's a decision to remove materials is just done at the behest of a group or is there actually a vote of somebody whether it is the school board, board of supervisors or even the decision of the superintendent is it that bodies decision to remove said materials? >> not always. most have weeding processes and a general consensus. especially in nonfiction literature where we need to keep updated information accurate and that is a process that is trusted to the experts so librarians to be able to do that process. >> i would argue miss hall that at the end of the day you might decide what is going to sit in a library but the funding comes from the taxing authority and if they choose to remove that purchase, the responsibility falls with them so if the body politic, the parents

decide that they find materialobjectionable , if they go to the elected representatives who have authority over the school district and they vote to remove material, wouldn't you say that is the appropriate way of our representative democracy is supposed to work ? >> ... >> better question, should parents have the ability to have their voices heard about material in frontof their children whether it is mandatory or optional ? >> absolutely. as i stated my statement and they do have that right. the books being banned are a majority of the books and they are not books for required reading. you absolutely have a say in what your child should beable to read no longer coming to us . >> i can finish my answer. >>the gentleman got 45 seconds . >> parents have a say, they don't have a say.

>> you'll get a chance. i would not say parents have the right to say for other parents. i'm seeing you parents or a large part of the community, heand ability to lobby or engage with their elected officials on a local level to decide what's in the room. i would say the answerdis yes. quick question for you. i understand the situation you play out with your child. i have three sons . i understand what you and your spouse are having to go through to explain and support your child, i m understand that. if the material was not in your child's library to be able to acquire that material through amazon,barnes and noble or anywhere else ? >> me, yes but not every parent have that opportunity to do that every child safe enough. >> i think this is important. >> i appreciate your answer. the point i'm trying to make is that we have many parents who have very different objectives and they all

should be respected in this discussion. so to make the argument that books are being banned when they are going through the legal course of action to talk to their representatives i think is very hyperbolic and is not actually correct about the process that is being used to decide what materials are in or out of wo the classroom and with that i yield back . >> i would also just ask you to read page 59 of my book which dealt with just precisely the process you're talking about but where the supreme court still said you can't strip books from public school libraries because of the viewpoint or content and now i'm going to come to mister lever for her five minutes of questions . >> thank you chairman raskin. you know, i'm a mother of two raising two little coboys in our country. and it's been a very difficult.

but you know, i want to thank you so much for just what you said really resonated with me. i know iget emotional . i think ofmy two boys . and you know, our children just simply want to exist. as they are. they want tobe loved . i want to feel human. you know, there's so much dehumanization happening even at a young age .d and they want to feel like they belong. and it's so hard because i see my colleague wasserman schultz that we have to see the stuff that we don't understand has to beavailable so that we know the detriment that it can have on our society . i can't imagine 150 books chairman have been challenged

. 62 percent of them address lgbtq+ issues. when we have an issue in our country, anti-blackness exists in our country. we should be constantly right now working and addressing it because it is a disease that kills. either by suicide or by violence and so much more. you know miss bridget something you testified when you were at school you didn't see any of those stories the images . my son saw this image. he heard me talking about it. there was an image in the usa today depicting muslims as like nazis. it was awful. it was like a skeleton image and it said to me god is great. and i'm talking to his dad and all my god, if people see

this their going to want to kill us. my son walks in and you know what he says? he says mommy, don't worry. if somebody asks if i'm muslim i will lie and tell them i'm not. that devastated me. that my child didn't feel like he should exist the cause of hearing me talking about these things but i also want him to pick up a book and see somebody of his faith or psomebody that has that same lived experience or being a child of a palestinian father or a mother who grew up in detroit in the most beautiful blackest city inthe country . so this is a really hard hearing. i love you but you always have the most difficult hearings. and i just you know, i have so many questions but i just hope my colleagues understand the importance and human impact . you have a huge role. i grow up the bookmobile and

you remember the bookmobile? i didn't speak english when i started school. i would get up there and get the book i needed and i loved it because of course there was a latino that was there that helped me understand . brown girl very into books and it was also the teacher that i was really shy. you can imagine me being shy this bird but my first debate hearing i got up and choked but it was an amazing teacher mrs. marshall who showed me i had a voice. this is so difficult because it's not just about the books . it's about being human in our country. and stop politicizing it. we need to see ourselves and our country. so i just look forward to the day when our children can read history. in a class about the sad eight full bigots who tried h to drag america backwards and

i hope it inspires them to also be fighters like lily and like the witnesses here today to stop them dead in their r tracks. i'm with you. i just want you all to know i appreciate your courage being here. i could ask you all kinds of questions but i feel like i'm speaking for the choir. i'm happy we're doing this because i think bringing it to the halls of congress makes it more real and at least they can see some of us that we do see them as human beings. thank you and i yield. >> thank you for that beautiful moving statement miss tlaib. what an honor it is to serve with her. questioning from our distinguished ranking member mrs. mace of south carolina. >> thank you mister chairman and thank you for your patience today. miss ruby bridges, it's great to have someone who's such a historical figure in the civil rights movement here today.

we want to thank you for your time and for everyone who's here today it took most of the time out of your day and out of work and school and i mister chairman i haveunanimous consent i want to enter into the record . if we're waiting books around here's mine. it's not been banned yet as far as i know and you probably can get it used for a dollar on ebay but nonetheless i had questions i want to follow up on from my colleagues earlier today and miss bird i want to thank you for your time. i have a few yes, sir no questions i want to ask the panel and the first one miss bird, does a state superintendent of education have a role in defining curriculum for students of that state, yes, sir no west and mark. >> that's more than a yes, sir no question. >> does the state superintendent of education have a role in determining curriculum . >> that's not hhow curriculum works. >> do school boards have a say in shaping curriculum in state education. >> that's not how curriculum

works. >> do parents have a say in curriculum. >> i wrote acurriculum, that's not how it works . >> is not a yes, sir no question. >> it is a yes, sir no question in determining the outcome of education and a daughter of a retired teacher and working mom of two kids. i believe myself and their dad have a say in the outcome of the curriculum of my kids education and miss all thank you for being here today and thank you for bringing your experience as a librarian with us this afternoon. are the only libraries in the united states schoollibraries ? >> no. >> are there libraries that may be municipalities or counties that also create in different states across the country. >> i believe there known as public libraries. >> is there anything that prevents a student from going to a public library if they

can't find a book they want to read in their school library ? >> transportation rewould be the main one. >> are they allowed to go to a public library or our students allowed to be a only a school library if they havent transportation . >> that would be a parent's decision. >> are there places where parents or students can get books, like a physical bookstore like a barnes and noble . >> perhaps if they have the financial need. >> can parents buy books online from amazon. >> perhaps. >> can you go to a place like goodwill and get a book or maybe even for free? >> goodwill's selection is not as expensive. >> oso what you're saying is there's more than one opportunity for a student or a parent to get the book for their kids liking. they're not only limited to public schools. they can get a book from a lot of different places, even a coffee shop . >> yes . >> you mentioned about

students having safe spaces to read, is a classroom asafe space read ? >> that depends on the classroom. >> our school libraries safe places to read? >> that depends on the individual library. >> park it's safe to read at home. >> not always. >> are most kids safe toread at home. >> i do not have the numbers . >> then i had additional questions. if a student wanted to get a lgbtq+ book that wasn't in the school library could they get it at a public library ? >> if they had the transportation and means. >> but would a lgbtq+ book be available in a public library or book of anyother nature ? i want to get to mister nug, lapologies if i'm not seeing your name right. you talk a lot about free speech, free speech on college campuses for example. there are lots of examples of censored speech, even people who are against so

censoring want to censor people because they don't believe in their beliefs .ew there's people that want to banned me from going on fox news sbut we're going to not stop doing that and in him at some cases people are attacked for their beliefs. i had my house spray-painted by someone who disagreed with my political beliefs and had my car keyed for the same thing and sometimes on college campuses students don't have the freedom of speech so can you explain to us why freedom of speech is so important in the united states? >> many reasons, i talked about the importance of expression of different th viewpoints to learn about other people's goodwill. universities are also places where you have political scientists, economists and su everybody can freely explore issues. the student leaders in those classrooms are going to learn how to solve today's problems a lot better .

faculty are afraid to talk about things like racial inequality and do so in a truly wide-ranging way. we're not going to come up with solutions the country needs. >> before i run out of time i want to ask unanimous consent to enter the following article into the record from my local hometown paper the post courier regarding a college that banned a political club, nonpartisan political club.a lawsuit was filed and the college had to pay the students legal fees and a $20,000 and this article details how the local college tried to deny access to funding on a college campus for a political group that was of no political affiliation after that lawsuit changes policy regarding how they treat students and freedom ofspeech . >> without objection. thank you for your questioning. i think a couple members are on their way back so let me just ask a few questions i had of everybody and we can go down the tunnel there.

i think it's easy for us to recognize when something's actual censorship. in violation of the supreme court's decision in board of education versus pico when schools are saying we don't like catcher in the dry and native son and they offended some pressure group and we're going to remove them or in the higher ed context, we're not going to hire someone who teaches critical race theory or hire someone who is a conservative or a liberal or what have you. that's easy but a number of you have talked about the somewhat more at the question of the climate. of what the feelings are like and that's much harder to put a finger on that. i think one of our colleagues before said even as i think of 40-year-old who was involved gin politics, he still felt he couldn't really express exhis feelings about something and we know a lot of lgbtq+ people also feel

maybe ybnobody has said i can't talk about my sexual orientation. maybe they haven't passed don't say gay in my state but i still feel stifled. how do we cultivate the values of tolerance and acceptance such that we don't have the informal mechanisms of marginalizing people? maybe we can start with you miss berg and work ourway down . >> absolutely. we were actually having a great conversation and i said the one thing that i fostered in my class was being a safe space is theability to have these conversations regardless of your viewpoint . and i asked students what do you want to discuss and it's always these major issues that are going on outside in our world and i say one rule avonly, if you want to talk about this you show respect.

they're not here to all agree with each other, we're here to listen and you haveto listen as much as you talk and that is truly what is giving me hope for the future because my teenagers can do it i hope we can . talk and listen and just respect one another . because you want them to have this access to the a conversation to again hopefully change our future. >> you clearly modeled those values of respect and tolerance so thank you for that . >> i think every constituency has something to do. administrators need to tear down their bias response teams but they should also model the tolerance of other viewpoints so presidents and provosts should go to talks on either side of the aisle and make sure we're inviting speakers to discuss topics on every side of the aisle. faculty, we need to hire faculty they disagree with. the biggest problem with faculty research committees is that they're duplicating themselves so political

science and philosophy and literature they become basically viewpoints monocultures and students need to help students understand the importance of free and open discourse of civil discourse so we need to incorporate training modules, faculty need to remind students that this is a place for free and open debate and they shouldn't be using social media to shame people who are expressing diverse viewpoints . >> i appreciate that . >> thank you miss berg. you said a lot of what i was going to say but i think we do better when we listen to each other's stories and these stories are in the books that we read in the classroom. in the school libraries. and with me you've heard when i talked about the lgbtq+ books for my family and learning about the people that we need to work with whether it be in the school,

in the community, even when you get out into the real world so it's important that we do better when we know about each other and it's within our books that we learn about each other, listening to each other. >> missed holes before i come to mister jordan. >> i'll echo everyone's thoughts. what i'm hearing is we need to build tolerance and empathy and how we do that is by starting through literature and we allow our youngest learners to be comfortable when they're uncomfortable. and being able to feel like they can ask questions and express different viewpoints edin ways that have been modeled through even age appropriate children's stories all the way up through novels at the high school level. >> very good. thank you all for your thoughtful answers to that question and i'm going to yield to mister jordan for his five minutes. >> thank you mister chairman. doctor, did i get that close? cli'll say doctor from now

on. i'll just stick with that. what do you think the biggest r threat right now, where's the biggest concerns about free speech having ? >> i think the two biggest problems are lack of viewpoint diversity as john stuart mill explained. it'snot enough to have free expression, you need to be presented with ideas that challenge you and think outside of your comfort zone . >> i'm asking is that moreso on college campuses ? >> i think the situation on college campuses is much worse . >> we've got us safe spaces where you can go and you can't be criticized, free speech zones. >> we're talking about the fact that a lot of the things you put trigger warnings on in college are a lot of the things students are trying to remove like pictures and classic literature. those are the things they are

talking about in middle school are in high school . >> i guess when it comes to elementary or even primary education that's about what's appropriate for kids. that's a different debate than college campuses or adults free speech. >> absolutely. i think it's reasonable for k-12 to ask are these resources well tailored to our educational objectives so you can never remove a book for political ideas or social perspectives. however and this is from justice blackmun writing in pico, first amendment principles would allow schoolboard to refuse to make a book available to students because it contains offensive language or because it is psychologically or intellectually inappropriate or even perhaps because the ideas and advances are manifestly against the public welfare. >> that's a different animal. on the college campus can a safe space and a free-speech zone. the samelocation ?

>> they have different objectives so i would say number but free-speech is not in itself automatic because it suggests there's only one part. >> it seems to be where is the free-speech zone supposed to be ? >> heis in the quad somewhere. >> it seems to me the first amendment is the first amendment and a free-speech zone should be just about everywhere . >> aforetime place restrictions. >> and tell me about these, i remember we had some hearings a few years ago. we had been shapiro and other people come in and college professors. tell me about these bias response teams, i remember that. >> i think one of the most insidious things. there are hundreds of them out there. they look different on every campus. that often have police officers and administrators but what happens is you create some kind of portal and students are encouraged to anonymously make complaints about things that are said or done and this triggers some kind of

investigation . sometimes the response team can refer for punishment but the design of the process is that it be reputation damaging and onerous so that any reasonable objectively reasonable student would want to avoid this. how do you avoid it? you avoid it by saying anything anyone could take sense out of. >> you don't want someone to report you to the bias response team because it chills everyone speech. >> you can't even watch been shapiro in your door. >> one of the things i'm concerned about is this term misinformation . misinformation gets used it seems if someone is however someone defines misinformation, if you engage in it than that speech is not allowed to happen and i'm concerned about that because i think one of the biggest purveyors of misinformation is the government. government tells us things all the time that aren't accurate but somehow if a citizen says something they're going to get attacked by often i think by the left

for misinformation. >> the concept of misinformation, the idea that we should be banning and the idea of an intellectual marketplace where you if you have dialogue, the ones that are false right to the bottom so for example we didn't do a whole lot of scientific discussion of masks and how effective masks were. we just heard our public health authorities tell us they don't help and that they do help and they don't help and the problem with that is it reduces our confidence in government and our public health officials. that's a huge problem. i wish they would have said were not totally sure. >> there's whole bunches of examples where the government told us something that turned about out to be the opposite yet if you question that you were label as the one spreading misinformation. we've got to be very careful with that phenomenon but with that i yield back. >> with that we've come to the end of our representative

questioners. miss mason, any final thoughts you wanted to conclude with? >> thank you mister chairman and i want to thank our witnesses for their time today and in hearing our witnesses this afternoon and this morning i think the idea of censorship is a far more important issue than the issue of state superintendents of education, state boards of education. local county boards of education and parents doing what is legally and rightfully theirsto determine is how their kids are educated in their communities . so when you look at this issue and you look at some of the censorship happening on college campuses as we heard today from doctor loosening, that censorship on social media is far moredangerous than what we're hearing i think from our witnesses

today and i've experienced it myself . part of the american experiment is being able to have a exchange of ideas and not get attacked for it but we're seeingconservatives and some on the far left and far right being attacked every day in this country . and these the censorship and this erasure is not being appliedequally . i know the kremlin is tweeting on twitter right now . we're banning conservatives from twitter yet the kremlin can still to today. if you're going to have a standard applied equally oaacross all users on the social media. and complaining that parents go to school boards to have their voices heard is wrong accusing schools and saying there's no safe place to go read in the classroom or the library , that should be the safest place to read. this is i think not an accurate representation of what's truly going on but at the same time we want to have

folks like ruby bridges having her voices heard. there are so many black voices, so many lgbtq voices that have the right to be heard at the same time but the questioning of speech and looking at that from that m perspective, even bernie sanders i read a story earlier today from danny moran quoted bernie sanders not too long ago that people have a right to give their two cents, give a speech without fear of violence and intimidation etc. and yet today we have hethat going on. we have the november 2020 election where many wouldn't talk about the business hunter biden was in. and wouldn't talk about some of the i would say allegedly shady work that he was doing and whether or not his father was a part of that and doing that at the tail end of the election. so we see that every day and there was a citation earlier about kids not feeling safe cause of their lgbtq status and mental illness are up,

depression and anxiety has been up by 20 percent overthe last year . that is a statistic from the world health organization. i've seen it in my own family withchildren who have suffered because they were not in school, they were in virtual school and i've seen some children that haven't been able to get it back . i've seen an increase in drug use from kids who don't have the ability to drive right ernow so we're having these conversations about anxiety and i hope we could have a broader discussion about how keeping our kids out of school has harmed them over the last 2 years. i want to lastly say again mister raskin even though we sometimes nddisagree we always agree to itdisagree and i love the debate we had in the civil rights subcommittee and i want tothank you all for your time in being here today . >> thank you for the excellent conclusion and for making sure you would be here to participate in this.

i've got a few closing thoughts of my own. i want to thank our extraordinary witnesses beginning with the students with us in the first panel but i want to thank samantha hall was a librarian from the great lancaster county. many freeman from bucks county pa and we thank you for being with us along with yourdaughter . and doctor jonathan who is with the american council of trustees and alumni and jessica burke was a teacher in neighboring loudoun county virginia. i also was very moved by the testimony imand the seriousness with which all of you have approached a really important topic and i just had a few cleanup thoughts i wanted to advance before we close. one is on the question of the fine old lost art of american pickling. i got heckled yesterday by our colleague marjorie taylor

green on the floor of the house and it wasfine with me. i think they were about to gavel her down or tell her to be removed . she was yelling at me but she left some oxygen and space for me to respond and i did that kind of heckling you go back and read the lincoln douglas debate there's a great compendium of the lincoln douglas debates by a historian named harold holzer . but he includes the heckling that took place and people would yell things out and lincoln and douglas would respond to them and asometimes it would launch into a discussion between the two of them. that heckling is fine. the kind where people are actually trying to shut people up and shut downthe event , that strikes me as not within the spirit of the first amendment much less something like we saw on january 6 which was the ultimate act of censorship.

the ultimate expression of an canceled culture was what took place on january 6 where 900 people entered this building unlawfully, evading the metal detectors, evading the office and actually wounding and injuring 160 of our officers.an smashing them in the face ba with baseball bats and american flags and confederate flags and so on. that to me was the essence of canceled culture. they were trying to cancel our whole democracy. they were trying to cancel the whole constitution so i was not happy to see the relatively trivial violence before on video all. i think anybody was wounded

or given posttraumatic stress syndrome or killed and that violence but i wasn't happy to see it and i'm not happy to see a form of heckling which is really just shutting down other people's speech. the second thing i want to say and we were about to get to the hearing so well on a great bipartisan commitment but i did want to respond to my friend jim jordan. i don't know if he's out there. i'm sorry if he's left the room but it's easy to feel that your group is somehow being unfairly targeted and made a victim. i've spoken before to the gentleman from ohio about this and he seems to believe conservatives are somehow uniquely the victims of what he called canceled culture. we've already heard from a speaker today.ro student, teacher, librarian, mom. about the actual attempts to strip books from people's

libraries and we heard from the great ruby bridges about the extraordinary and shocking effort to censor her book and remove them from public libraries and the critical experience, the formative experience for our lives is the civil rights movement affectingeverybody, not just the african-american community . but the people in the white te community. people all across the board. this is the american story. and so i guess what i'd like to say is i think we're going to advance the first amendment values that all of us hold dear if we can step a bit beyond our own sense of indignation to determine how we are the first people ever to feel the sting of the marginalized. i know that conservatives feel marginalized. i think oakland is sometimes

mentioned as a school. liberals feel marginalized sometimes at george mason university. conservatives can feel model marginalized and liberals can feel marginalized at the university of chicago let's try to maintain a sense of balance about that and we can talk about how to improve the climate for everybody. i think it's within the p spirit of first amendment values that we want to give everybody the right to speak and participate and respect them as much as possible and finally to the point raised by my friend, i think a couple of the other members raised this to. we do have a kind of attention or balance in our public schools and by the way our public universities to which between individual freedom and democracy. there is no doubt that we have democratic mechanisms like school boards and state legislatures teand county

education superintendents who are involved in the preparation of curriculum that is a function of ur democracy.he and at the same time, under our first amendment the supreme court has said and certainly the people feel our students, their teachers don't shed their first amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate. so we have to try to reconcile those two values. all i would say about the current attempts to demonize and vilify people on school boards, teachers, librarians is they are the democratic culture along with our pta and our parents. they are the people that have been put in by the voters all across america. they're doing a hell of a job i think. and so just because someone decides they want to go on a book band rampage or expedition doesn't mean suddenly severybody from the electives to the school boards are everybody in

office for everybody who was head of the pta is somehow the enemy of the people. i just don't accept that. i think the teachers, librarians, the pta people, the school officials are doing their best to reconcile all these values in a democratic society and the first amendment is there to protect all of us in the supreme court i think has been clear about viewpoint discrimination whether the higher education level, board of directors versus university of virginia i think it's all in the rosenberger case where no, you can't discriminate against religious student groups that want to get money to publish their newspaper. it got an equal right to the republican and democrats and liberalsand conservatives . just because you're a religious group doesn't mean you can be discriminated against but the supreme court has been equally clear in the case through that context while curricular materials must be age-appropriate you

can't take books out of the library because somebody else doesn't like it now and with that image i started with. the first amendment, freedom of speech and everybody just wants to take one bite out of the apple and if we let everybody take one bite there's nothing left to it. we've got to defend not just the speech we love and the speech we agree with but also the speech that might force us to learn something new or the speech we think we really contact and despise. that's what the first amendment is about. i want to thank the great ruby bridges for gracing us today. it means so much to us to have had you with us. and miss friedman, mister leslie and ms. burke. all the students, everybody participating. thank you for this important investment in american freedom m and the meeting is now adjourned. witnesses will have five days to get us any changes to

their testimony and members will have five days with which to submit additional written questions for the witnesses and we will send them to you and please respond to them as aquickly as you can and with that the meeting is adjourned. >> the full hearing on book i censorship in schools is available online at c-span.org. >> book tv: television for serious readers. >> joining us on book tv is author tomnichols. his most recent book is called our own worst enemy . the assault from within on modern democracy. he has recently retired as the us naval war college professor. professor nichols, last couple of years we've been