Good things are happening! A state supreme court gives the youth a chance to live, nurses win a union, the Garden State bans book bans, and small businesses go big.
Banning Book Bans
New Jersey became the third state to enact a ban on book bans, following the lead of Illinois and Minnesota. The law, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy (D) on Dec. 9, will prohibit public and school libraries from banning books and protect librarians from lawsuits and criminal charges for following the new mandate.
Under the new “Freedom to Read” law, public and school libraries are barred from censoring books because of the origin, background, or views of the material or the material’s author. The law allows the restriction of “developmentally inappropriate material” for certain age groups and permits local school boards and governing bodies of public libraries to establish policies for book curation.
