To hear our local lawmakers, you’d think they were school librarians’ pals for backing a law that could put them in jail for doing their jobs. It’s as if they haven’t read a bill they support.
At a virtual Third House session Saturday hosted by the Columbus Educators Association, Columbus Republican Rep. Ryan Lauer and Sen. Greg Walker discussed a bill that would strip legal protections from school librarians.
As The Republic’s Jana Wiersema reported, Senate Bill 12, which Walker voted for and Lauer supports, is “a bill that has classroom teachers and librarians on edge,” CEA representative Alan Birkemeier told the lawmakers. That’s because Senate Bill 12 would potentially put school librarians in the crosshairs of local prosecutors.
“Teachers and librarians worry that this bill would lead to some trying to censor or ban materials that are not harmful to minors but merely contain ideas or content with which they personally disagree,” said Birkemeier.
Birkemeier gave away the lawmakers’ game. They’re enjoying a broad, frontal assault on public schools, libraries, books, education and the freedom to read. Sadly, attitudes like these have become articles of faith among a disturbingly high percentage of Indiana Republicans, who run the Statehouse.
Lawmakers say they are only trying to protect children from “obscene” and “harmful” materials. School libraries do not contain obscene materials. Yet Ryan and others weirdly keep suggesting they do, never providing examples.
“It doesn’t ban books. It doesn’t,” Ryan protested about SB 12.
Yet the bill’s first page begins with the requirement that schools establish an “appeal committee” whose purpose includes evaluating book complaints. Those panels then must either “Order the removal of the book from the school library … Order the book be placed in an age-appropriate section within the school library (or) … Deny the complaint.”
This is such a terrible bill that it will never survive court scrutiny under an unconstitutionally vague challenge. That’s because the bill contains no criteria for how these committees would determine a book is “inappropriate.” Further, the only time these “appeal committees” would be required to report a decision is when they choose to deny a complaint. So they could ban a book without ever telling anyone. That’s a censor’s dream!
Walker said: “There is no way that a … prosecutor can bring a case against a school librarian or anyone involved with a school because they think the material is inappropriate, OK?”
That’s not true, either. The bill can be read to say that if a school librarian provided a book that an appeals committee had removed from the library, that librarian could be charged. And again, it would make no difference why the book was deemed “inappropriate”.
In Indiana, 91 elected prosecutors make charging decisions. Walker assumes too much, because every prosecutor has discretion on filing charges. If Walker really wanted to make sure prosecutors couldn’t charge school librarians for giving a child a book, he would oppose this bill. Because prosecutors can’t do that now, but they could if this bill becomes law.
