Portside

Immigration activists prepare

Jennings and other prisoners say reading is therapy for them, but a hostile bureaucracy often makes access to books and other reading materials difficult.

Librarians in at least three states are asking the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to intervene after they were fired for refusing to ban books.

Amid all the skirmishes over individual book titles and challenge policies, it's easy to miss the toll it's taking on librarians, kids, and the country.

Rereading The Fire Next Time after the death of Michael Brown, and then again after that of George Floyd, changed the book for me—because those events had changed me. I want my students to have that same opportunity in their own time, not just mine.

Potentially the most consequential shift has come from the Biden administration.