The following was published as an opinion editorial by Jordyn Chabotte, Mat-Su Organizer, in the Mat-Su Frontiersman on September 24, 2024. The original piece can be found here.
Here’s something we all know is true in Alaska: everything costs a lot of money. Food, air travel, fuel to heat our homes, and childcare. The list is endless. One thing that we didn’t foresee being so expensive? The cost of censorship across our community.
Last year, the Mat-Su Borough School District adopted a policy that removed 56 book titles from school shelves across the district before they went through a proper review process. The books were removed because they contained ideas that members of the Board did not like or agree with. This is tried and true censorship; the identities and experiences that are depicted in some of the books are not obscene, they are testaments of the human spirit, lived experiences, and traumas that people go through, including our fellow Alaskans.
What followed the book ban in the District is not unique to the Mat-Su. Individuals who know that this kind of censorship violates their constitutional rights took legal action to push back on the actions of the District. After all, who wants the government to tell them what they can or can’t read? Alaskans sought legal help to ensure that their freedom of speech and access to information ceased to be violated. And now, the Mat-Su Borough School District is in the midst of costly litigation that they must resolve because of its censorship.
What’s most concerning is that other governing bodies in our community aren’t learning from this mistake of the School District. Cities are considering community advisory boards that function to review and remove more books that have ideas people disagree with. The Borough has put its own advisory committee into action, which has already recommended that two books be removed from all Borough libraries for all patrons regardless of age, interests, or personal beliefs. This paints a costly future for our region that takes away from supporting the safety and wellbeing of our youth and community members. The costs we will incur from censorship will continue to drain us of resources that we do not have.
This week is Banned Books Week, a time to celebrate the rights that we have as Americans and Alaskans to access information and have intellectual freedom. Rather than trying to ban books that have challenging or new-to-you subject areas, I encourage you to pick up one of the books and read it. If you don't like it, or it makes you uncomfortable, put it down and go about your day. The fiscally responsible choice is to let people choose for themselves what books they read, and to not continue trying to ban books. The Alaskan thing to do is to let everyone choose for themself.
Jordyn Chabotte is the Mat-Su Organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, a writer and small business owner, and a lifelong Mat-Su resident.
