Trouble in Censorville: The Far Right's Assault of Public Education and the Teachers Who Are Fighting Back

From Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to Texas districts shuttering libraries in schools, public education in America is under attack from the far right. In Trouble in Censorville, public school teachers describe, in their own words, being threatened, doxxed, ostracized, smeared as pedophilic “groomers,” placed on leave, or fired for teaching historical truth and racial justice, supporting LGBTQ+ students and, in one case, for wearing "insufficiently" feminine attire.

And yet, teachers are fighting back. They’re mobilizing colleagues, parents, and community members who share their faith in the freedom to read, the freedom to think critically, the freedom to challenge small-minded provincialism. Their testimonials of frontline resistance, collected here, provide a battle plan for confronting censorship, rallying support, and mobilizing a grassroots defense of public schools.

Terrifying, infuriating, and inspiring, Trouble in Censorville sounds the alarm for a democracy on fire.