Update on House Bill 636
A few weeks ago we published a blog post that went into detail about House Bill 636. If you have not had the chance to read the post, you can access it here: https://readfreenc.org/2025/04/28/house-bill-636-and-what-it-means/
The bill passed in the House and is currently under review from the Senate.
Now, EveryLibrary and NCLA have teamed up to fight this bill. EveryLibrary has drafted a statement that can be found here addressing their concerns over House Bill 636.
Their statement echoes the more in depth statement by NCLA that can be found here.
For those who may not be familiar with the organization, EveryLibrary is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving libraries across the county. They aim to keep political influence out of libraries and preserve both librarians’ work and the books themselves. They have already had success in other states at keeping harmful legislation out of the libraries and we can only hope their efforts here are just as successful.
More about House Bill 636:
The bill as presented would pave the way for more book banning across the state by:
- Not allowing any book in a school library that discusses sex or has depictions of sexual activity.
- Requiring all school principals to personally check every book at a school book fair for “appropriateness.”
- Creating an advisory committee consisting of 5 parents and 5 school district employees (does not have to be school librarians) to investigate every book challenge.
- Having a database of all “rejected” library materials maintained by all the schools and accessible by anyone.
- Allowing parents and community members to sue the school libraries for having materials they deem “inappropriate.”
All of this, and more, is laid out in the bill itself, accessible here.
As always, the language in this bill that is clearly targeting libraries for the purpose of limiting access to materials, is left purposefully vague.
Terms such as “pervasively vulgar” and “inappropriate for minors” have no definition and leave the door wide open for challenges to be made to materials that have nothing to do with sex.
I won’t go into too much detail about the bill as I already did in a previous post, but please read the bill and read the statements from NCLA and EveryLibrary. The statements made were eloquent in expressing concerns over what harm this bill would do to NC libraries and schools.
The one thing I will say is this: a bill like this allows anyone, parent or no, to attack a school library based solely on their own opinion, and win. Whether Republicans want all materials to be removed they disagree with or not, that is exactly what would happen. Which leads to the restriction of the Freedom to Read and our First Amendment rights.
Please take the time to read through the statements and the bill itself. Contact your representatives and let them know that you do not stand with this bill. Let your family and friends know and ask for their help in this fight.
Together, we can make a stand for libraries and for our patrons. But we all have to be willing to make the stand.
“Get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up. Don’t give up the fight.” – Bob Marley