Education Dept. Ends Book Ban Investigations , immediately hailed by conservative groups [View all]

Education Dept. Ends Book Ban Investigations
The department said it would relinquish its role investigating schools that had received civil rights complaints after removing books dealing with sexual and racial identity.

The Education Department said on Friday that it would no longer investigate schools that remove books from their libraries, emphasizing its new stance by dismissing 11 pending civil rights complaints related to book bans in public schools.

The move, immediately hailed by conservative groups, represents a significant whittling-down of the department’s traditional authority as President Trump’s incoming administration makes rapid strides toward its goal of relinquishing oversight of education to the states.

Reacting to an aggressive wave of book challenges in public schools, particularly to books about sexual and racial identity, the Biden administration in 2023 created a book ban coordinator role intended to monitor what experts called an alarming trend.

That coordinator also had oversight of the department’s response to the challenges, as the Education Department is generally legally required to pursue investigations into complaints that allege civil rights violations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/us/politics/education-dept-ends-book-ban-investigations.html