St. Francis college students protest e book bans with walkout as lawsuits problem the district’s coverage
College students from St. Francis Excessive Faculty staged a walkout on March 24, 2025, to protest the elimination of quite a few books from their college libraries. The protest comes amid rising tensions over the varsity district’s controversial e book ban coverage, which makes use of scores from the now-defunct web site BookLooks.org to find out which books ought to be eliminated. The district’s choice has sparked two lawsuits, one filed by a gaggle of oldsters and one other by the ACLU of Minnesota.
The walkout, which noticed round 125 college students leaving their school rooms, was a response to the district’s ban on books which were deemed to include “objectionable content material.” These books embody widespread titles like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. College students, together with Rowan Anderson, voiced issues that these e book removals had been harming their training. As quoted by the Star Tribune, Anderson stated, “That is inflicting an excessive detrimental impact to our training, and the stress is palpable inside the highschool itself.”
Authorized actions and ACLU help
The lawsuits filed on March 24, 2025, in Anoka County District Court docket, problem the St. Francis Space Colleges’ new coverage, which bases e book bans on scores from BookLooks.org. The scores, on a scale from 0 to five, flag books with a ranking of three or above as inappropriate for varsity libraries. The coverage has drawn criticism for its lack of transparency and its reliance on a now-defunct web site. The ACLU of Minnesota has joined the authorized battle, arguing that the e book bans violate college students’ constitutional rights to entry data, with ACLU-MN Workers Lawyer Catherine Ahlin-Halverson stating, “The liberty to learn is key to our democracy” (Star Tribune).
Group response and pupil solidarity
The coed walkout was not solely a protest but additionally an indication of solidarity. Outdoors the St. Francis Excessive Faculty, neighborhood members, together with Barb Anderson, confirmed help for the scholars’ actions. Anderson, who has two kids who graduated from the district, held an indication studying “Give Lecturers Their Books Again!” as reported by the Star Tribune. The protests are anticipated to accentuate because the lawsuits proceed and the district’s e book ban coverage faces authorized scrutiny.
