When a junior at an Orange County public high school in Florida visited the school library to check out a copy of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, it wasn’t in its Dewey decimal system-assigned location.
It turns out the title had been removed from the library’s shelves because of a complaint, and in compliance with Florida House Bill 1069, it had been removed from the library indefinitely. Kerouac’s quintessential chronicle of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, along with hundreds of other titles, was not available for students to read.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in July 2023. Under this law, if a parent or community member objected to a book on the grounds that it was obscene or pornographic, the school had to remove that title from the curriculum within five days and hold a public hearing with a special magistrate appointed by the state.
On Aug. 13, 2025, Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District of Florida ruled in Penguin Random House v. Gibson that parts of Florida HB 1069 are unconstitutional and violate students’ First Amendment right of free access to ideas.
The plaintiffs who filed the suit included the five largest trade book publishing houses, a group of award-winning authors, the Authors Guild, which is a labor union for published professional authors with over 15,000 members, and the parents of a group of Florida students.
I’ve spent the past 26 years training English language arts teachers at Arizona State University, and 24 years before that teaching high school English. I understand the importance of Mendoza’s ruling for keeping books in classrooms and school libraries. In my experience, every few years the books teachers have chosen to teach come under attack. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the history of censorship in this country and pass it to my students, in order to prepare them for what may lie ahead in their careers as English teachers.
Legal precedent
The August 2025 ruling is in keeping with legal precedent around censorship. Over the years, U.S. courts have established that obscenity can be a legitimate cause for removing a book from the public sphere, but only under limited circumstances.
In the 1933 case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Judge John Munro Woolsey declared that James Joyce’s classic novel was not obscene, contradicting a lower court ruling. Woolsey emphasized that works must be considered as a whole, rather than judged by “selected excerpts,” and that reviewers should apply contemporary national standards and think about the effect on the average person.
In 1957, the Supreme Court further clarified First Amendment protections in Roth v. United States by rejecting the argument that obscenity lacks redeeming social importance. In this case, the court defined obscenity as material that, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient – that is, lascivious – interest in sex in average readers.
The Supreme Court’s 1973 Miller v. California decision created the eponymous Miller test for jurors in obscenity cases. This test incorporates language from the Ulysses and Roth rulings, asking jurors to consider whether the average person, looking at the work as a whole and applying the contemporary standards in their community, would find it lascivious. It also adds the consideration of whether the material in question is of “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” when deciding whether it is obscene.
Another decision that is particularly relevant for teachers and school librarians is 1982’s Island Trees School District v. Pico, a case brought by students against their school board. The Supreme Court ruled that removing books from a school library or curriculum is a violation of the First Amendment if it is an attempt to suppress ideas. Free access to ideas in books, the court wrote, is sacrosanct: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”
These 23 books were removed from Florida school libraries under Florida HB 1069. In his ruling in Penguin Random House v. Gibson, Judge Carlos Mendoza named them and stated, ‘None of these books are obscene.’Illustration by The Conversation
The Village
Library Demon-Hunting Society, by C. M. Waggoner (Ace)
I often dive into books without
reading the description, and in the case of The
Village Library Demon-Hunting Societyby C.
M. Waggoner, this yielded many delightful surprises and plot twists. I picked
it up thinking I’d find a cozy mystery, conveniently forgetting the “demon-hunting”
part of the title. Indeed, the opening is very cozy: a small town, a quaint
library with older, single librarian sleuth (Sherry Pinkwhistle, great name!) with
eccentric friends and a sweet beau, and a murder mystery. As she investigates, she
realizes something is not quite right. A suspect confesses but not all the
evidence fits. Sherry wonders why her little town has a disproportionate number
of murders and why she is always the one to solve them, much to the annoyance
of the local sheriff. And why, at the peak of the chase, the town is cut off
from the outside world.
At this point, things go seriously
demon-pear-shaped. Supernatural forces are at work, creating the same Murder,
She Wrote scenario over and over, while preying on Sherry’s private guilt.
By the time the sheriff yells at her in an inhuman voice that she must
investigate another murder, all Sherry’s suspicions are in full play. It’s off
to the library to do research!
Despite the demon-hunting weirdness,
the cozy quality and Sherry’s intrepid librarian superpowers never failed to
deliver a great read. The moral for demons and murderers alike: Never mess with
a librarian.
The Make America Healthy Again movement has generated a lot of discussion about public health. But the language MAHA proponents use to describe health and disease has also raised concerns among the disability and chronic illness communities.
I’m a researcher studying the rhetoric of health and medicine – and, specifically, the rhetoric of risk. This means I analyze the language used by public officials, institutions, health care providers and other groups in discussing health risks to decode the underlying beliefs and assumptions that can affect both policy and public sentiment about health issues.
As a scholar of rhetoric and the mother of an autistic child, in the language of MAHA I hear a disregard for the humanity of people with disabilities and a shift from supporting them to blaming them for their needs.
Such language goes all the way up to the MAHA movement’s highest-level leader, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It is clearly evident in the report on children’s health published in May 2025 by the MAHA Commission, which was established by President Donald Trump and is led by Kennedy, as well as in the MAHA Commission’s follow-up draft recommendations, leaked on Aug. 15, 2025.
One key concept for understanding the MAHA movement’s rhetoric, introduced by a prominent sociologist named Ulrich Beck, is what sociologists now call individualization of risk. Beck argued that modern societies and governments frame almost all health risks as being about personal choice and responsibility. That approach obscures how policies made by large institutions – such as governments, for example – constrain the choices that people are able to make.
In other words, governments and other institutions tend to focus on the choices that individuals make to intentionally deflect from their own responsibility for the other risk factors. The consequence, in many cases, is that the institution is off the hook for any responsibility for negative outcomes.
Beck, writing in 1986, pointed to nuclear plants in the Soviet Union as an example. People who lived near them reported health issues that they suspected were caused by radiation. But the government denied the existence of any evidence linking their woes to radiation exposure, implying that lifestyle choices were to blame. Some scholars have identified a similar dynamic in the U.S. today, where the government emphasizes personal responsibility while downplaying the effects of public policy on health outcomes.
A shift in responsibility
Such a shift in responsibility is evident in how MAHA proponents, including Kennedy, discuss chronic illness and disabilities – in particular, autism.
In its May 2025 report on children’s health, the MAHA Commission describes the administration’s views on chronic diseases in children. The report notes that the increased prevalence in “obesity, diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, cancer, mental health, autoimmune disorders and allergies” are “preventable trends.” It also frames the “major drivers” of these trends as “the food children are eating, the chemicals they are exposed to, the medications they are taking, and various changes to their lifestyle and behavior, particularly those related to physical activity, sleep and the use of technology.”
Extensive research shows that genetics accounts for most of the risk of developing autism, but the MAHA Commission report discussed only lifestyle and environmental factors.Dusan Stankovic/E+ via Getty Images
There’s nothing inherently wrong with studying the environmental factors that might contribute to autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. In fact, many researchers believe that autism is caused by complex interactions between genes and environmental factors. But here’s where Beck’s concept of individualization becomes revealing: While the government is clearly not responsible for the genetic causes of chronic diseases, this narrow focus on lifestyle and environmental factors implies that autism can be prevented if these factors are altered or eliminated.
While this may sound like great news, there are a couple of problems. First, it’s simply not true. Second, the Trump administration and Kennedy have canceled tens of millions of dollars in research funding for autism – including on environmental causes – replacing it with an initiative with an unclear review process. This is an unusual move if the goal is to identify and mitigate environmental risk factors And finally, the government could use this claim to justify removing federally funded support systems that are essential for the well-being of autistic people and their families – and instead focus all its efforts on eliminating processed foods, toxins and vaccines.
Even more worrisome is the implication that autism is a kind of damage caused by the environment rather than one of many normal variations in human neurological diversity – framing people with autism as a problem that society must solve.
How language encodes value judgments
Such logic sets off alarm bells for anyone familiar with the history of eugenics, a movement that began with the idea of improving America by making its people healthier and quickly evolved to make judgments about who is and is not fit to participate in society.
Kennedy’s explanation for the rise in autism diagnoses contradicts decades of research by independent researchers as well as assessments by the CDC.
Even if organic foods and a toxin-free household were the answer to reducing the prevalence of autism, the leaked MAHA Commission strategy report steers clear of recommending government regulation in industries such as food and agriculture, which would be needed to make these options affordable and widely available.
Instead, MAHA’s supposed interventions would remain lifestyle choices – and expensive ones, at that – left for individual families to make for themselves.
Just asking questions
Kennedy and other MAHA proponents also employ another powerful rhetorical tactic: raising questions about topics that have already reached a scientific consensus. This tactic frames such questions as pursuits of truth, but their purpose is actually to create doubt. This tactic, too, is evident in the MAHA Commission’s reports.
MAHA rhetoric thus continues a troubling trend in the anti-vaccine movement of calling all of science and Western medicine into question in order to further a specific agenda, regardless of the risks to public health.
The MAHA Commission’s goals are almost universally appealing – healthier food, healthier kids and a healthier environment for all Americans. But analyzing what is implied, minimized or left out entirely can illuminate a much more complex political and social agenda.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a
family of readers. Admittedly, on my
mother’s side of the family, some of them mostly read the Bible or religious
works. Others, like my mother and
grandmother, loved the “sweet” Romances of the period. My uncles loved Westerns and police
thrillers. My father’s parents, on the
other hand, were serious Leftists and read serious Leftist books, like DAS
KAPITAL in the original German. Both
sides, however, believed in reading aloud to children. They also believed in public libraries.
From the time I was big enough to
walk the ten blocks or so to our local branch, my grandmother and I made a
weekly trip to the library. She loaded
up on genre reading for her, and I loaded up on books from the children’s
section, mostly animal stories, which I particularly loved. As soon as I could read, I read a lot, well
beyond that illusory category, “grade level”.
That’s when the trouble started.
Not from my grandparents, I hasten to add, but from the other adults
around me.
When I was an older child and young
teen-ager, back in the 1950s, I began to hear entirely too often, “You
shouldn’t be reading that book. It’s not
for you.” No, I hadn’t picked out a book
with too many big words or too much sex, nothing from the “Adult” section of
our public library, no Leftist tracts, either.
I had committed the sin of liking Boys’ Books.
It may be hard to imagine now, but
there used to be fixed categories of Boys’ Books and Girls’ Books. Boys got science fiction, adventure stories,
historical stories of battles and exploration.
Girls got junior Romances, stories of girls helping others or setting up
their own homes, horse stories, and . . . well, I never found much else in that
section of the library. Some were well
written, like the “Anne of Green Gables” books or the “Flicka” horse
stories. Most struck me as utter crap,
even at thirteen, particularly the junior Romances, such as the Rosamund de
Jardin “Marcy” series. Oh yes, I can’t
forget the forerunners of “self help” books.
Those available for girls in the 1950s centered around “how to look
pretty and get a boyfriend.” I never
noticed any self help in the Boys’ section.
They, apparently, didn’t need advice.
What I wanted were the adventures,
the battles, and the science fiction.
Among the Boys’ Books, I discovered Roy Chapman Andrews and Robert
Heinlein’s YA novels, along with a lot of lesser writers whose names, alas, I
have forgotten but whom I loved at the time.
When I went to the library desk to check these books out, the voices
started. “Are you getting those for your
brother? No? Why do you want to read those? They’re for boys. You should look in the Girls’ section.” No librarian actually prevented me from
taking the books home, mind. That was
reserved for my mother. “Why are you
reading that junk?” was one of her favorite phrases. “It’s not for girls. Take those back. Get some good books.”
I read most of Heinlein’s YA books
while sitting in the library. Why risk
taking them home and getting nagged?
When as a teen, I graduated to SF for grown-ups, the disapproval escalated,
too. My mother helpfully tried to get me
to read proper female literature by checking out books for me. I dutifully read them -- hell, I’d read
anything at that age, from cereal boxes on up -- but I never liked them. Finally, she gave up.
Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time Novel)
by Kelley Armstrong (St Martins)
Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth
installment in Kelley Armstrong's “Rip Through Time” time-travel novels
that feature modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson, who has slipped
150 years into the past to Victorian Scotland. By now, three books later, she's
developed meaningful relationships with the people around her and is using her
training as an assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh
McCreadie. That’s all the backstory a reader needs, since Armstrong skillfully
weaves in the relevant material as the plot unfolds. The important thing is
that Duncan and Hugh, along with Hugh’s independent-minded sister, Isla, know Mallory’s
true identity and trust her investigatory skills.
Now the four are off to a beautiful highland hunting lodge
for the wedding of Hugh’s younger sister. All is not well, however. The new gamekeeper
has been laying traps that threaten not only local wildlife but the poor folk
accustomed to traveling freely over the estate. Soon, Mallory and her friends
are caught up in a series of increasingly bizarre mysteries that culminate in
the murder of one of the guests, for which the inexperienced young constable
arrests the groom.
The combination of time travel and murder mystery would furnish
an entertaining read, but Armstrong goes further. Her sensitivity to relationships,
the vulnerability of women in the 1870s, especially those without rank or
money, and Mallory’s compassion and quick insight all make for a deeper story.
It’s not necessary to have read the preceding volumes to enjoy Death at a
Highland Wedding, although you’ll likely want to gobble up as many of the
adventures of Mallory and her friends as you can find.
Deborah J.
Ross: Tell us a little about
yourself. How did you come to be a writer?
Katharine
Kerr: From childhood on, I’ve
always loved to read. Somewhere around age 8 I realized that books did not just
magically appear – they were written by people! And I vowed that one day I’d be
one of them. I never lost sight of that goal, even when my life turned very
difficult in my 20’s. I just kept reading and kept writing for practice. When I
finally finished a novel, FLICKERS, that is, a family saga such as was popular
in the 1980s, I realized I’d need an agent. People ask me: how did you learn
how to get published without the internet? The answer always seems to surprise
them. I don’t know why. I went to the public library and looked up the subject
in the old-fashioned card catalog. Lo and behold! There was a whole shelf of
books on the subject. I read several and followed their advice.
DJR: What inspired your
book, Haze?
KK: For some time, several years really,
before I started work on it, I had a scene in my mind. A derelict, probably an
addict, was sitting on the sidewalk in a far future city when a military
officer came striding to offer him redemption . . . for something, I didn’t
know what. But they turned out to be Dan Brennan and Captain Evans. I started
writing from there.
DJR: How does it relate to your other hard
sf?
KK: When I wrote POLAR CITY BLUES, back in
the 1990s, I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of something longer.
After years of working on the Deverry Saga, I wanted to write a one-off,
something that ended! One of my friends, Kate Daniel, thought otherwise. She
wrote almost all of POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE even though my name’s on the cover –
commercial reasons, of course. In these two books, Humanity have settled only a
few exoplanets. The dominant species are the Kar-Li and the H’Allevae (known as
Hoppers), but the Leps are represented too, under the condescending name of
“lizzies”.
In a short story I wrote, “Its Own Reward,” another
sapient species appears, the Val Chiri Gan. This story takes place a long while
before the Polar City pair, when the Old Earth is dying. They may reappear in
ZYON. I’m not sure yet.
SNARE and PALACE are two books more closely linked to
HAZE. Both are victims of the sudden closing of the same interstellar
shunt. PALACE was another collaboration.
I had nothing to do with the sequel, however, and unlike PCN, my name certainly
belongs on the cover of PALACE itself.
