Education Minnesota-St. Francis empowers parents, students, community to fight back against book bans
In 2024, the Minnesota Legislature passed a “ban on book bans”— a law preventing the removal or restriction of books “based solely on its viewpoint or the messages, ideas, or opinions it conveys.”
Yet in the St. Francis High School library, a cart laden with copies of “The Kite Runner” sat in the corner with a sign taped to it advising students that the books were “no longer part of our collection and cannot be checked out.”
The reason? A controversial and likely illegal school board policy passed last November.
Under this policy, a book’s appropriateness is determined by its rating on a website called BookLooks, a community-run site affiliated with Moms for Liberty—the group spearheading censorship and book banning efforts across the country in recent years. Under the St. Francis policy, any book with a BookLooks rating of 3 or higher (on a 1-5 scale) must be removed from school libraries and classroom libraries, with no reconsideration or appeals process.
The BookLooks criteria disproportionately targets literature that features BIPOC characters, LGBTQ characters, or that contain what the site refers to as “inflammatory religious commentary,” giving these books higher scores. This includes classic and commonly studied texts such as “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, “Night,” by Eli Wiesel and others.
Neither the individuals scoring the books nor the criteria used for their ratings are disclosed by BookLooks.
Education Minnesota-St. Francis President Ryan Fiereck explained that the main push for the policy came from several members of the school board who had lost their elections and were trying to pass this before they left office. “It was something they’d been trying to do for a long time, but it took a while to get their feet under them,” Fiereck said. Against the advice of their attorney, the school board passed the policy at one of their last meetings before the new members came in.
At that November meeting, board member Amy Kelly explicitly said that the goal of the policy was to align school libraries with her “red” beliefs – a clear violation of Minnesota state statute. While the 2024 law does allow for the removal of books based on “legitimate pedagogical concerns, including but not limited to the appropriateness for the library’s intended audience,” the school board member’s remarks made it clear that this policy was passed to ban books that did not align with a certain viewpoint, rather than because of pedagogical concerns.
Even when the new school board members took office, Fiereck said the board was relatively apathetic to the policy change, refusing to repeal it despite not agreeing with the policy. “This is what courts are for,” Fiereck said. “We gave them about three meetings to take action and when they didn’t, that’s when we decided to sue.”
The lawsuit filed by Education Minnesota-St. Francis asks for the books to be restored and for the policy to be overturned. The local’s goal is for the district to establish a proper process that allows for a conversation about which books belong in the classroom, with the ability for experts and community members to weigh in.
Education Minnesota-St. Francis had several meetings to lay the groundwork for the lawsuit to move swiftly. “Before the end of the year, we had emergency meetings and passed resolutions that gave me, as president, the power to use any means necessary to overturn the decision — up to and including a lawsuit,” Fiereck said. From there, he reached out to members with children in the district and asked for volunteers who would be willing to put their names on a lawsuit. Several leaders within the union stepped up, including their Member Rights Chair and two building stewards.
“There are some concerns about being targeted or that the community might come after you,” Fiereck said. “People were rightly worried about their safety. Fortunately, it hasn’t happened, but people didn’t want their kids to turn into pariahs and be targeted.”
Despite the fears of backlash and safety concerns, Fiereck said they’ve received strong community support. “A group of parents got involved in late January into February, and the leaders of that have done a phenomenal job of engaged parents who are frustrated that politics are being played with their kids,” he said. “Even though many of them are probably conservative themselves, the idea that you can just remove these books is not something they support.”
Those parents have created a coalition called Parents for the Freedom to Read, which has been very active at school board meetings and has taken up the mantle of pushing back against the book ban, with the union providing support. Because of the lawsuit, the EM-St. Francis members involved cannot speak publicly about the book ban, so Fiereck said it has helped to have a group to be the public face of fighting back.
St. Francis students have also gotten involved in the fight, organizing a walkout and addressing the school board repeatedly at meetings. “They’re probably our best speakers and they’ve been pretty consistent,” Fiereck said. “They’ve been pushing the conversation, talking about how important it is to have the tools [they need to succeed.]”
Fiereck said that the most effective arguments have been emphasizing the lack of local control and demonstrating that the union has the moral high ground.
He shared that one significant impact has been the toll this policy has taken on educator confidence. He
says there’s an expectation that teachers’ training and expertise is respected and that they are trusted to know what’s best for their students, but these policies have a lot of educators second-guessing themselves and their expertise. He outlined an example where a community member attempted to target an early career educator for a book they were teaching. The community rallied around the educator and the post targeting that person was eventually taken down, but that didn’t undo the damage that had already been done.
“Don’t give them a reason to shop around for other jobs,” he said, highlighting how these policies and the behavior they spark can worsen the educator shortage. “They’re not here because they’re getting paid the most—not only in education, but also in St. Francis.”
Book bans like St. Francis’ also negatively impact student performance. “When you’re spending time worrying about whether this material is okay or that material is acceptable, you have less time to spend on preparing students” for things like standardized tests, said Fiereck. “How can you adequately prepare a student for a test if you can’t [teach them with materials they’re likely to see on the test?]”
Fiereck said the biggest takeaway from this experience is that opportunities for solidarity exist in all spaces. “It doesn’t just have to happen in the big cities. Even in the reddest of areas, when we come together and work with the community, the parents are there when we ask them for support.”
