'Acts of harassment': Education Dept warns book bans are violating kids' civil rights

The Department of Education is warning that a Georgia school district's ban of books related to race and sexual orientation creates a "hostile environment" for students that could constitute a violation of federal civil rights law, reportedThe Washington Post on Monday.

"The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights released its findings in a letter Friday wrapping up its investigation into Forsyth County Schools’ 2022 decision to pull nearly a dozen books from shelves after parents complained of titles’ sexual and LGBTQ content," the Post wrote.

"To resolve the investigation, the district north of Atlanta agreed to offer 'supportive measures' to students affected by the book removals and to administer a school climate survey, per the letter," reported Hannah Natanson and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff. "Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said in a statement she is pleased that Forsyth County Schools is taking 'appropriate action regarding acts of harassment.'"

"'The OCR’s finding will cause our school district, and other school systems around the country, to think twice before acquiescing to pressure from pro-censorship groups targeting our libraries,' Becky Woomer, of The Forsyth Coalition for Education, said in a statement sent to the Post.

'This finding gives people in places like Missouri and Florida, where state legislatures are making it easier to take books off shelves, a real leg to stand on in pushing back.'"

In the past two years, right-wing groups around the country have agitated for removals of books from schools, driven in part by laws passed by Republicans in states like Florida that make such challenges easier.

Oftentimes the challenges are ostensibly due to "pornographic" content, even though most of the challenged books are not pornographic by any commonly understood definition of that word.