Texas politicians, stop your crusade on school libraries before we see books burned

The battle over books in school libraries has quickly devolved into a game of: “Can you top this?”

First, there was a Southlake school administrator’s absurd instruction to teachers that, under a vague new state law, they couldn’t have a book about the Holocaust in their classrooms without one presenting an opposing perspective. Then, it was Fort Worth Rep. Matt Krause, a candidate for attorney general, using his legislative perch to ask school districts to report whether they have hundreds of books on hand, many of them on sensitive issues of race and sexuality.

Gov. Greg Abbott escalated things quickly, first asking the Texas Association of School Boards to police sensitive material in schools. Then, he ordered the Texas Education Agency to investigate possible criminal activity around “pornography” in schools.

That last one, in particular, was preposterous. As if an agency full of education bureaucrats could suddenly morph into CSI: School Libraries.

It also shows how much these actions are rooted in politics. Abbott is determined to show he’s the most conservative governor around, and Krause is trying to find a way to get the attention of hard-core GOP voters before the crowded primary for attorney general.

Such stunts are often harmless. But censorship of books has a long, inglorious history. It’s a dangerous fire to play with, but our state leaders are reaching in with both hands.

And it will continue. Parents are focusing on education issues in a new way. It’s mostly political conservatives, outraged by progressive teachings on race and sex. But many others who were often apolitical, at least on education issues, are newly dialed in. The workings of their schools and what their kids are taught grabbed their attention when it was virtually piped into their homes during the pandemic.

As always, these issues are best handled at the local level. If schools have inappropriate material or if disputes over what should be available must be resolved, it’s best done by working with local PTAs and school administrators or school boards.

When lawmakers react, there is often grandstanding, overreach and poorly written law, as we saw in the Legislature’s two attempts to address lessons about race, history and current events in Texas schools. The vagueness of what they produced is at least partly to blame for the Southlake Holocaust disaster.

When examples such as a recent Keller library dispute come to light, it only fuels the fire. Parents discovered a sexually explicit graphic novel, they demanded action. The book, “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” is inappropriate for a school library, period. Materials to help students struggling with sexuality or gender identity need not be graphic.

But those libraries often have thousands of books. It’s tough for a school librarian to review every item, and they’re trying to meet a broad range of needs and demands about what should be available to children.

School districts would be wise to have a well-defined process to review books, understand what they have on hand and set standards. Dealing with books via individual controversies is divisive and time consuming.

Parents should have the right to say their children won’t have access to certain materials. But they shouldn’t be able to have an absolute veto affecting all students. A clear set of community standards, set by school boards with parental input, should guide decisions.

But attempting to criminalize certain content does more damage than just creating a political sideshow. It opens the door to sweeping censorship and even suggestions of book burning. Our communities can and should handle these controversies much more responsibly than that.