Senate Bill 2101, will be heard in the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee at 9am on Monday, April 28, 2025. Like its identical companion bill, House Bill 3225, Senate Bill 2101 is what Texas Freedom to Read Project cofounder, Frank Strong, describes as "a screaming red alarm for people who care about books, about the freedom to read, or about libraries."

The 89th Texas Legislative Session is in full swing. We're seeing some movement on several bills that would have significant negative impacts on public school and municipal libraries, booksellers, librarians and educators. Texans continue to face unprecedented threats to our freedom to read, but we are also seeing strong opposition to lots of the bad bills being debated and considered. We have no idea what bills will make it over the finish line and become law, but we know we are proud of the response we have seen our fellow Texans raise so far. Let's look at some of the bills we are tracking, and identify some steps you can take today to continue fighting against book bans and censorship in Texas, today! 

(Update as of April 25, 2025)- the identical Senate Companion Bill 2101 for HB 3225, is scheduled for a committee hearing in Austin on Monday, April 28, 2025 at 9am. Info and calls to action can be found here. 

By Frank Strong- originally published on Frank's Substack: Anger & Clarity. 

House Bill 3225 will be heard in the Texas House of Representatives State Affairs Committee at 8:00 a.m next Monday, April 14. This is a screaming red alarm for people who care about books, about the freedom to read, or about libraries.

Last week, the Texas Senate K-16 Education Committee voted 10-1 (Senator José Menéndez was the lone dissenting vote) to send SB13 to the full Senate for a vote. 

Senate Bill 13- which is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's priority bill to "guard against inappropriate books in public schools" is listed on the Regular Order of Business and likely to be taken up for a vote by the full Texas senate very soon.

Act now, before it's too late. 

The Texas Senate K-16 Education Committee will hold a committee meeting and public hearing on a number of proposed senate bills on Thursday, February 27.

The meeting is scheduled to start around 10am, and may last all day. Members of the public are invited to provide testimony on the bills listed on the hearing notice- including Senate Bill 13- which is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's priority bill to "guard against inappropriate books in public schools."

So now is the time to make plans to travel to Austin, and/or start emailing your elected representatives and committee members.

{Guest post by Leila Green Little} According to documents obtained from a public records request, the State of Texas has spent $179,897.54 on its defense so far in BookPeople, Inc., et al., v. Martha Wong, et al. This price tag results from over 1,600 hours of labor for the Office of the Attorney General’s office.

And this is just the beginning—this cost will surely increase as the case goes to trial. Should the trend continue and the State of Texas eventually lose in the terminal stage of this lawsuit (as they most likely will), it will be responsible for paying the plaintiffs’ legal fees. 

In August, Katy ISD’s school board adopted a revision to the EFB Local library book policy that prohibits books that “promote gender fluidity” in elementary & junior high, & requires parent opt-in for high school students. 

According to information obtained by public information request, Katy ISD campus librarians were informed in early October that students are to be prohibited from checking out over 400 books that the District marked “FA(Local)” in the District wide Destiny library catalog.

Katy ISD added 14 titles to their list of "removed" (ie: banned) books last week- bringing the total books banned since August 2024 to thirty four. This month's additions include widely read, and lauded, works like Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

The majority of affected titles continue to correspond with a list of 676 titles provided to public school districts throughout Texas, by extremist, pro-censorship group- Citizens Defending Freedom- following a visit from CDF affiliated Remnant Alliance "pastors" to Katy ISD's April 2024 board meeting.

This means, that a group that has been labeled "anti-government" by the SPLC- that has been embraced by sitting Katy ISD school board trustees- is driving the demands to censor and ban books in Katy ISD, not Katy ISD parents, residents or students. 

Here at Texas Freedom to Read Project we often feel disappointed and dismayed at the censorship attempts we see across the state, but we rarely feel surprised. However, this week, we learned about an incident that floored us. Thanks to the work of a concerned citizen, we discovered that the Montgomery County Citizens Review Committee (completely void of librarians) has ordered a juvenile nonfiction book- that documents American history from the perspective of the Wampanoag tribe-to be moved from the Juvenile Nonfiction Collection to the Fiction Collection of the Montgomery County Memorial Public Library.

Those driving this seemingly relentless wave of censorship in Texas defend their actions by claiming restricting and removing books in K-12 public schools is not “a book ban,” but rather necessary to “protect children from obscene and harmful materials” which they dub “pornography.” They claim “No books are being banned. Anyone can still check these books out from their public library. These books just do not belong in schools.” Besides the fact that many of the books they target are not even close to “obscene” or “pornographic,” they are straight up lying.