STATE HOUSE — State Senators handed Sen. Mark McKenney‘s (D-Dist. 30, Warwick) Freedom to Learn Act Tuesday defending libraries and patrons from partisan & doctrinal book-banning efforts and affirm the free speech rights of authors, publishers and readers in Rhode Island.
The Freedom to Learn Act (2025-S 0238A) would promote the free expression and free entry of knowledge by prohibiting the censorship of library supplies. It now strikes to the Home of Representatives the place comparable laws (2025-H 5726) has been launched by Rep. David Morales (D-Dist. 7, Windfall).
“We will determine what books we need to take a look at from the library, and we are able to determine what our personal kids learn or don’t learn. However what we are able to’t do is determine what everybody else will get to learn or what different folks’s kids get to learn or not learn,” stated McKenney. “Studying is a present, and it’s so essential that we keep protecting of the reward of studying and that when somebody desires to take it away, whether or not by banning books straight or by launching lawsuits making an attempt to intimidate libraries, colleges and librarians due to a guide they’ve on their cabinets, we battle.”
‘We will determine what books we need to take a look at from the library, and we are able to determine what our personal kids learn or don’t learn. However what we are able to’t do is determine what everybody else will get to learn or what different folks’s kids get to learn or not learn.’ — Sen. Mark McKenney
The act would cost the commissioner of elementary and secondary training, in collaboration with the chief of library companies, to develop insurance policies relating to library assortment insurance policies for public and college libraries to be able to present requirements for the choice and curation of library materials, set up standards for the elimination of present college library materials and supply safety in opposition to makes an attempt to censor library materials. These insurance policies can be designed to help the liberty to learn as a human proper, encourage and shield the liberty of public libraries to amass books and different supplies with out exterior limitations and be certain that these supplies not be banned, eliminated, censored or have entry to them restricted as a consequence of doctrinal or partisan disapproval.
“Public libraries are the repositories of free thought, and librarians are the guardians of these ideas,” stated Senator McKenney. “It needs to be the coverage of each state to ensure that libraries stay a spot of free and open change of concepts with none partisan or doctrinal stress. The laws would completely prohibit supplies being faraway from public libraries due to these pressures.”
The laws would additionally assert that “Authors, creators, and publishers have a proper to speak their concepts to anybody who’s thinking about receiving them. College students and library patrons of all ages have a corresponding proper to come across them with out authorities interference.”
