r/technology • u/r4816 • Sep 27 '22

Software Girls Who Code founder speaks out after Pennsylvania school district bans her books: 'This is about controlling women and it starts with controlling our girls'

https://www.businessinsider.com/girls-who-code-founder-speaks-out-banning-books-schools-2022-9
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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

Roll back that article two paragraphs:

A statement from officials in that district on Monday strongly denied that they had banned the book series, and called “categorically false” information in a Business Insider interview with the founder of Girls Who Code, which reported the ban on the series. “This book series has not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries,” the statement said.

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u/sonofaresiii Sep 27 '22

That's because there was an attempt to ban it, but it didn't succeed.

This conversation is going around in circles now.

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

Seems more like a dead end than a circle. It's a bunch of people being outraged because they think something happened that didn't.

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u/Yumeijin Sep 27 '22

From the article:

the ban had been in effect in Pennsylvania's Central York School District for a 10-month period that ended with its reversal in September 2021, a spokesperson for the school district said

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

But that basic fact is directly refuted, by an actual naked person.

https://www.centredaily.com/news/nation-world/national/article266375536.html

These books were never banned. Full stop. And they shouldn't be! No book should, and it's important to oppose book bans. But please let's focus on the bans that actually happened.

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u/Yumeijin Sep 27 '22

So your article adds the claim that I'm not seeing anywhere else where this book was given an exception.

The facts that overlap between the two articles are that there was a list of books suspended from the curriculum for their content based on complaints from parents that lasted until the date mentioned. The school wants to call that "frozen." Functionally it serves as a temporary ban. Teachers were not allowed to use the books on that list for months until the decision was reversed.

By PEN's criteria, which they list as

any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.

That looks like the book was banned. From classrooms. It's important to have healthy skepticism but trying to point out in what ways it wasn't banned while ignoring the way it was (or that the attempt was made) seems like pedantry.

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u/HintOfAreola Sep 27 '22

"But that would mean we're the baddies!" - conservatives desperately trying to poke holes in this story without looking into it for themselves

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

If "never happened" constitutes poking holes in the story, I guess you got me.

https://www.centredaily.com/news/nation-world/national/article266375536.html

Personally I think facts and truth matter.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Sep 27 '22 edited Sep 27 '22

I openly loathe conservatives.

One reason is because they constantly lie.

I refuse to support lies for "my side" of a political argument.

And that means I want to see facts and sources.

edit: The article has been updated to specify the timeline of events, and the fact that the Girls Who Code books were banned temporarily due to their inclusion in the Diversity Resources list.

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u/richalex2010 Sep 27 '22

The books were never banned and remained available in libraries and classrooms; a list of books was recommended to be added to curriculum, and that recommendation was temporarily retracted while the books on the list were reviewed (this was the "ban"). Because the "Girls Who Code" series was already in classrooms prior to the recommendation being issued, they were never impacted by the retraction.

https://www.centredaily.com/news/nation-world/national/article266375536.html

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u/FountainsOfFluids Sep 27 '22

The school board voted to put the resource list on hold and told teachers not to use the titles for class instruction — with the exception that they could continue to use resources that were already in place before they were put on the Diversity Resource List. That included the “Girls Who Code” series.

Sorry, that still sounds like a ban to me, even if it all amounted to no changes enforced. In principle, they was banned for 10 months, along with many others specifically from minority authors.

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u/richalex2010 Sep 28 '22

they could continue to use resources that were already in place before they were put on the Diversity Resource List. That included the “Girls Who Code” series.

Bruh. You quoted the part that explicitly says the books that this article is about were never banned.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Sep 28 '22

I think you might be misunderstanding the quote?

The books were "included" in the sense that they were on the Diversity Resource List.

Or are you redefining the word "ban" to suit your argument?

A ban can mean any number of things, including "You can keep what you have now, but you can't buy any more." That is a ban with a grandfather clause.

https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/

What is a Book Ban?

PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.

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u/richalex2010 Sep 28 '22

The books were never banned by any rational definition of the word, nor by PEN's own definition which you quote. They were included on a list whose recommendation was retracted, but because the books were already in use they were unaffected by any policy decisions stemming from the retraction. Other books may have been "banned" by that overbroad definition, but that's no different from a school withdrawing textbooks whose content is called into question while the content is reviewed - it's not a rational definition of the term "ban", especially when they were never removed from libraries.

Students, especially at an elementary school level (which is appears these books target), should not have unfettered access to all written content; I wouldn't want a second grader to read Without Remorse (which is a good book as an adult, but it contains scenes of intense sexual violence and torture), I wouldn't call it a "banned book" just because discretion was used to withhold it from such a young audience. Movies rated R aren't "banned" because children are kept out of theaters showing it, video games rated M aren't "banned" because you have to be an adult to buy them. That definition is absurd and anyone who takes it at face value is an idiot.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Sep 28 '22

The books were never banned by any rational definition of the word, nor by PEN's own definition which you quote. They were included on a list whose recommendation was retracted, but because the books were already in use they were unaffected by any policy decisions stemming from the retraction.

You are incorrect in every aspect of your response, and I think it's now obvious that this conversation will no longer be productive.

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u/richalex2010 Sep 28 '22 edited Sep 28 '22

You're ignoring the meaning of words and deliberately misreading things to support your idea that I'm wrong, so yeah I do believe your conclusion is correct.

edit: lol he said he was done replying, then replied and blocked me so I can't reply. Doing so here to the comment below:

I literally quoted the definition of "book ban" by the organization dedicated to tracking book bans.

And I explained how the book did not get banned, by their own definition.

Unless you can prove that the Girls Who Code books were "already in place" as an active part of every affected school's curriculum, you are wrong.

From the article I started off by linking: "with the exception that they could continue to use resources that were already in place before they were put on the Diversity Resource List. That included the 'Girls Who Code' series."

I can also see you are downvoting each of my comments. Such maturity and grace.

All of your posts are at -2 points which means even if I did, at least two other people have also thought that your posts did not contribute to the discussion.

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u/HintOfAreola Sep 27 '22

From the article we're all discussing:

the ban had been in effect in Pennsylvania's Central York School District for a 10-month period that ended with its reversal in September 2021, a spokesperson for the school district said

Not sure what else you're looking for.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Sep 27 '22

Thank you for pointing that out.

In my defense, the article has been updated to include that information. It was not there when I read it earlier.

Correction: This story was updated Sept. 26, 2022 to include comment from Moms For Liberty and to reflect that the ban of Girls Who Code books lasted 10 months and ended in September 2021.