Scholastic Draws Heat over 'Opt Out' Option for Books on Diversity

Generations of Americans grew up with Scholastic books. But a culture war targeting LGBTQ+ people, women, and racial minorities for erasure have found their way even to this beloved institution, prompting the publisher to create a new category for diverse books that schools can choose to include or ignore in offerings to students such as book fairs.

A category, NBC News notes, that critics contend includes "civil rights icons like Ruby Bridges and public figures like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson".

The news source detailed that "this year, the massive publisher of children's books, which manages sales at 120,000 book fairs nationwide, announced it has made a new collection titled 'Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice' that schools can opt in or out of, including at fairs."

The decision prompted criticism, NBC News said, coming as it does "amid a backdrop of heated debates in local school councils and state legislatures over books that address race, sex and gender identity."

Book fair organizer Gabrielle Balkan told NBC News that her "big concern was they were asking schools if you want to opt out on diversity," while Scholastic pointed to "enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 states to prohibit certain kinds of books," saying that such laws "create an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted."

Proponents of such state laws argue that books in schools and libraries contain "pornographic" and "sexualizing" content, or claim that they include elements of critical race theory, a college-level field of study that looks at how systemic racism perpetuates itself and affects the lives of individuals who are member of minority groups. Opponents say that the laws purge libraries of books that that offer children a way to see themselves and their families represented in literature, and question why book challenges and bans should make it possible for people who say they don't want their own children to read such material to effectively restrict what stories the children of other parents can have access to.

"The new diversity grouping doesn't include books that have recently been banned for overt sexual content or stories about transgender youths," NBC News noted. "Instead, it includes at least 64 titles with largely Black and brown community themes, such as the books about Bridges and Jackson, a book titled 'Reina Ramos Works it Out,' 'I Color Myself Different,' by former NFL star and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick, a children's biography of Malala Yousafzai and 'The ABC's of Black History'."

"Scholastic notes that book fair organizers can still individually order titles in the diversity grouping even if they don't order the whole unit of diverse books and that parents can order any book online for their children," NBC News relayed. "Scholastic says the overall number of diverse titles in its modules this year is "generally the same."

But concerns remain.

"Sequestering books on these topics risks depriving students and families of books that speak to them," PEN America said in a statement on Scholastic's attempt to navigate the issue by offering the new category.

"It will deny the opportunity for all students to encounter diverse stories that increase empathy, understanding and reflect the range of human experiences and identities," the group added. "In an environment of growing censorship, publishers have a dual obligation to both fight it, and to make books as maximally available as possible."

Or, as one book fair organizer in Pennsylvania, Megan Angelo, put it, "some random fair chair who personally doesn't want books with diverse protagonists [can] say, 'Nah, no thanks, don't send me that diverse case.'

"That is an insane amount of gatekeeping power over a child's reading choices to give an individual."