Don’t Read This (Warning: This Content is Banned)

The St. Stephen’s Becker Library is celebrating national Banned Books Week 2024 with a special book display in the library’s entrance. This recognition though is not only important for the school but for students also. Several Spartans are using their voices and talents to remove censorship and create opportunities for schools and communities both local and national.

Marygrace Beinke ’25 worked over the summer with the Austin Public Library's teen internship program and helped organize the upcoming Save the Books event, scheduled for September 28. Beinke was instrumental in creating the event’s website.

 

“The idea of not being allowed to learn certain things doesn't sit right with me, and the idea that information can be harmful or destructive, somehow, that really bothered me,” says Beinke.

Ayaan Moledina ’27 is serving as federal policy director at Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), a student-led organization and movement of young people who are developing transferable skills and demonstrating youth visibility in policymaking. Their mission—including working with lawmakers—is to support school districts across Texas dealing with pressure groups who are demanding censorship in their libraries and classrooms, discrimination in funding, and defeating proposed bills that would infringe on intellectual freedoms. 

 

“In this position, I lead students in getting involved in advocating for whatever issues that they are passionate about at the federal level—whether that be in the US Congress or through executive avenues like the White House and the Department of Education,” says Moledina. “I helped lead a piece of federal legislation that SEAT wrote to provide funding to school districts facing legal challenges against books. In the past few months, I have taken multiple trips to Washington, D.C. to meet with over 175 Congressional offices about many issues, including book bans and our legislation."

 

Moledina says he feels led to ensure equality for his peers no matter where they live.

“I am very passionate about ensuring all communities are represented in schools and in educational systems. This is an issue that has historically been very important to me and something that I like to take from various angles — whether that be curriculum or the books that we are allowed to read. Banning books is banning history and that is unacceptable because we know how many diverse populations have contributed to the America that we see today. I want to see myself and my culture, as well as the backgrounds of my peers, represented in what we are taught and what we read,” says Moledina.

 

Moldeina says he’s looking forward to this October. He and SEAT are working with the White House and First Lady Jill Biden to host a banned books forum.

 

Ella Kim ’25 is doing work on the state level as an inaugural intern of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, a new nonprofit dedicated to the fight against book bans and censorship. Some of Kim’s duties as an intern include attending online meetings and strategy sessions, representing the organization at events, contacting local district administrators to compile lists of school board candidates and then researching those candidates' views on censorship for their annual voter guide and much more. 

 

Kim has also recently launched a project called ellareads.org, a website where people can submit candid, personal reviews of banned or challenged books.

 

“My goal is to highlight the humanity and holistic value of books that are often evaluated by vague or oppressive rubrics,” says Kim, whose lifelong love of literature is the inspiration behind her work outside of school.

 

“I've loved books and literature my whole life,” says Kim. “As both a reader and a writer, it strikes me as profoundly wrong, for lack of a better word, that people censor authors and ideas purely because they disagree with them or because they don't align with personal and political agendas. It's incredibly empowering for someone to see their experience or identity reflected in mainstream media, and preventing access to that material—especially in schools, where students are in difficult and formative years—is narrow-minded and harmful.”

 

“When the freedom to read is restricted, individuals and communities are at a disadvantage,” says Shelby Devitt, St. Stephen’s Librarian. “Becker Library recognizes that the free access to ideas and full freedom of expression are fundamental to the educational process.” 

 

Be sure to visit the Banned Books display in Becker Library this week.