Breitbart News’ Joel Pollak: Shaping Curriculum Is Not Banning Books

Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak told C-SPAN’s Book TV on Sunday that there was a crucial difference between “book bans” and legitimate decisions about what should appear in a school curriculum.

The issue is a hot topic in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has been touring conservative states to protest their socially conservative politics. He has accused many “red states” of imposing “book bans” on schools.

C-SPAN’s John McArdle, interviewing Pollak at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California, noted the growing number of such “book bans,” and asked for Pollak’s view.

“I think the use of the term ‘book bans’ in the context of a school library is inappropriate,” Pollak replied.

“These are not book bans in a general or public sense. It would be one thing if they were banning the books from public libraries or university libraries or from bookstore shelves.

“When we are talking about schools, there are curriculum choices that are made by teachers, parents, school boards. That is not banning a book.

“Excluding certain books from a curriculum is not the same as banning a book. You are not saying that this book should not be read at all. You are saying that we want to shape the education of our children in a certain way.”

Pornography, he noted — acknowledging that it was an extreme example — was not allowed in school libraries, and yet few would call that a “book ban.” Most would agree that it was a question of what was appropriate for children.

Pollak noted that it might be appropriate to have provocative books available in high school, such as radical political texts.

“I was very well served in my high school education by having a display that the librarians put out … my freshman year, for Black History Month. There were a lot of radical books that excited my interest. I picked up The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Black Like Me … I would not have had that, had the school decided they were too controversial. So I think we have to allow for wide latitude in terms of the literature available, especially at the high school level.

“But I think we have to have a grounding first in the basics of American history, the basics of American civics., and the emphasis should be on providing those books to students rather than focusing, necessarily, on the radical books, the radical critiques, especially at younger grades. … I think it is not banning books to decide that some books do not serve that purpose in a way that is age-appropriate.”

Pollak added that liberal institutions and blue states were often the true culprits in banning books, and speech.

“Ironically, the banning is happening more frequently on liberal college campuses or even in liberal states like California. just recently, a state judge struck down a state law that was signed by Jerry Brown, the predecessor of our current governor, that applied penalties of up to one year in jail for people who misgendered other people in a nursing environment. When you are penalized for using the wrong gender, or the gender that corresponds with someone’s biological sex as opposed to the gender they have chosen, that is a severe restriction of freedom of speech.”

He went on to cite other examples in which conservative books, or speakers, had been canceled or suppressed by left-wing activists.

Pollak added that he did not necessarily agree with all of the decisions to withdraw materials from school curricula or school libraries: “I do think there is a tendency sometimes, because parents are so hypersensitive right now … to go too far.

He added: “But I would not apply the term book bans to what is happening in schools.”

Pollak is the author roughly a dozen print and e-books, including the recent biography Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’, as well as Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.