by Barb Conlin
It’s September, and fall is in the air! Not only is it pumpkin spice everything and Halloween decor everywhere, but this month is Working Gal’s Month here at Gal’s Guide. We have chosen the iconic 9 to 5 as our film selection, and we’ve picked Drop the Ball as our book club choice. In addition, our podcasts will all be about working women or events that have impacted us throughout history.
For my podcast episode, I selected Reshma Saujani. Reshma is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. She has worked as a lawyer on Wall Street and has been involved heavily in New York State and City politics. She is probably most well known for her best-selling book, Brave Not Perfect, as well as the international not-for-profit, Girls Who Code.
As Reshma ran for Congress, she encountered many schools along her campaign trail that lacked female representation in computer science classrooms. She founded Girls Who Code under the White House Science & Technology Initiative to address this inequity. Girls Who Code offers programs that teach girls in elementary school through college computing skills like programming, robotics, and web app design as well as life skills like developing a growth mindset and learning from mistakes. It also offers young girls mentoring and networking opportunities with some of the largest technology companies in the US. Each classroom has at least one woman with technical acumen and leadership as a teacher. After all, as our founder, Dr. Leah Leach, and Geena Davis say, if you can see it, you can be it. The programming at Girls Who Code drives this home with their inclusive approach.
This all sounds awesome, doesn’t it? I am onboard with #teamgirlswhocode!
Imagine my surprise when I discovered through my research of Reshma that four titles from the Girls Who Code book series had previously been banned from a school district in Pennsylvania. The books included Team BFF: Race to the Finish! and The Friendship Code by Stacia Deutsch, “Spotlight on Coding Club! by Michelle Schusterman, and Lights, Music, Code! by Jo Whittemore. Apparently, there was controversy due to the fact that these books (and others) were included on a Diversity Resource List that was created for the district after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. Other banned titles included Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography and children’s books about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. It is noted that almost all of the books were by or about people of color. In fact, many of the main characters in the Girls Who Code book series are girls of color and, as a woman of Indian descent, so is Reshma Saujani.
After this Diversity Resource list was completed and published, there were complaints on content. The board didn’t ban the books, so they claim – but rather froze the use of the books on the resource list until they could further review. In essence, though, they removed the books from usage in classrooms – regardless of what teachers and librarians suggested as appropriate and topical curriculum.
One teacher was quoted calling the ban “disgusting” to the local paper. That teacher was bold enough to further state, “Let’s just call it what it is – every author on that list is a Black voice.”
And I guess that is where I am – right here in Hamilton County – a county here in Indiana that has received global attention for its own book censorship.
I find it so very odd that cross-referencing banned or censored or reshelved book lists with diversity causes seems to always suggest an alignment that is denied by those who censor. Some folks claim that they are just trying to prevent pornography and explicit material from reaching the students. I wonder what was in the book series for Girls Who Code that these folks would find that fit in that category. Perhaps we disagree on what content is harmful to our kids.
The Board of Education v. Pico (1982) established that the right to receive information is a fundamental right protected under the U.S. Constitution when it considered whether a local school board violated the Constitution by removing books from a school library. In that decision, the Supreme Court held that “the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom.”
Let’s call it what it is. Censorship.
Side note: Sex education books and/or books depicting rape are not pornography. Also, you can’t read a book depicting a sex scene at a board meeting because, in that instance, you are subjecting other people to material you have selected. This does not mean that we need to remove that book from library shelves. You are not subjected to anything just because the book is available at a public library. See the difference?
Is it indoctrination that is feared? If we want to talk about indoctrination, why don’t we talk about the indoctrination that has been created in practically every aspect of our lives for generations – the one that represents the US as Christian, white, and heterosexual? I would throw skinny and pretty in there, too, but that might just be me being petty. The makeup of the US is diverse – and those diverse voices have every right to be heard and should be read. The books have every right to be in our libraries and used in our schools regardless of what the censors think. And by the way, if you are only reading books by authors who look and think like you, you are truly missing out on exercising your critical thinking skills, and quite frankly, that is a big part of the problem.
In response to the ban of the Girls Who Code books, Reshma tweeted: “This series was our labor of love, our commitment to our community to make sure that girls — all girls — see themselves as coders. You cannot be what you cannot see, and this was our effort to get more girls, girls of color interested in coding.”
Reshma also stated, “This is about controlling women and it starts with controlling our girls and what info they have access to.”
Another author of a Girls Who Code banned book, Jo Whittmore, tweeted, “Yep. I’ve been banned. Because some people choose not to focus on how awesome and empowering and inspiring these books are but instead choose fear.”
After public pressure, the school board in Pennsylvania released the banned books for usage again but only after a nearly year-long “pause” as they called it. I am glad that they eventually saw the error in their ways. Hopefully, the public library board here in Hamilton County will as well. After all, we have educated, experienced professionals who understand books, collections, and libraries. Our library and school staff are well versed in making decisions about what material is age-appropriate to place on bookshelves in public libraries and utilize in school curriculums. I will continue to speak out if we attempt to silence specific voices regardless of content, especially when the voices being silenced are the ones that need to be heard the most.
Fondly, Barb
Now – Go Be You!
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