Illinois passes law that bans ‘book bans’

Illinois recently passed a law that banned the potential removal of books, which Illinois lawmakers called “book bans.”

Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed House Bill 2789 into law last week and will take effect on January 1, 2024. The law was passed by the Democrat-majority state General Assembly and it became the first law to ban book bans.

The new Illinois law has to follow a “Library Bill of Rights” that promises libraries will not remove books that may stir “partisan or doctrinal approval.” Pritzker said, on Twitter, “I’ve laid out a budget agenda that does everything possible to invest in the education of our children… And it’s all meaningless if we become a nation that bans books from school libraries about racism suffered by Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron, and tells kids that they can’t talk about being gay.”

But the problem is that the media narrative surrounding “book bans” is a false narrative. Although lawmakers are pushing for the removal of books, it does not mean that the books are permanently banned from consumption by the public. The removal of books only affects libraries in public schools and does not prevent people from buying a book that is no longer available in their child’s school library. For example, people can find these so-called “banned books” at bookstore sellers like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or their local bookstore.

The Left’s rallying cry about book bans is supposed to evoke images of dictatorships in human history and the mainstream media picked up their messaging. It is clear that the book ban narrative was meant to misinform people about efforts to clean up school libraries of sexually-suggestive and age-inappropriate content.

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