From Publishers Weekly:
In their recently filed lawsuit to block HB 900, the controversial new Texas law that will require vendors to rate books sold to schools for sexual content, a coalition of booksellers and publishing industry associations insist that the law is both unconstitutional and impractical. “Booksellers do not see a clear path forward to rating the content of the thousands of titles sold to schools in the past, nor the thousands of titles that are published each year,” explained plaintiff Charley Rejsek, CEO of Austin-based vendor BookPeople, in a July 25 statement announcing the litigation. But with the law’s September 1 effective date bearing down, Follett School Solutions, the nation’s largest distributor of books to schools, does see a path forward in Texas—and that path apparently includes asking publishers to help rate their own books.
“Without having a 3rd party yet for the required ratings (Sexually Relevant and Sexually Explicit), our goal is to get as robust of a collection of purchasable content ready on September 1st and continue building as titles are rated,” reads the text of a memo from Follett officials addressed to Publishing Partners, which was shared anonymously with PW. “However, this is quite a workload. Follett is asking you to provide us with a simple spreadsheet helping us to identify titles which fall into two categories: either NO Questionable Content or Possible SR or SE Content (which we would send to a 3rd party for rating). Again, our goal is to get as many of your titles [available] on September 1st as possible.”
In the memo, Follett officials acknowledge that Texas has yet to provide detailed “guidelines” for how to rate books for sexual content. “But every title we can deem ‘OK’ to provide to them on September 1 for sale will be of benefit,” the memo states.
However, with a hearing on their federal lawsuit seeking to block the new Texas law just days away, publishers and other industry stakeholders are balking at Follett’s request to help the vendor rate their titles. Though all of the Big Five publishers declined to comment directly on the Follett memo for this story, multiple publishers confirmed its details. One publishing executive told PW on background that they understand the bind Follett faces in Texas with the new law but that complying with the request to rate their books would make them “complicit” in an act of censorship. And in a statement, one publisher, Hachette, went on record to broadly reject the idea of rating its books.
“We strongly disagree with the idea that rating our books to flag certain content, or having retailers or wholesalers do this, is appropriate or helpful. We trust our teachers, trust our librarians, trust our parents, trust our student readers who are hungry to experience the world in all the ways that books allow. And we trust the processes of professional review and community input that have been in place for decades,” Hachette officials told PW. “As publishers, we want our books to reach the broadest possible readership. That readership comprises individuals with unique tastes, reading levels, and lived experiences. There is great variability in reading ability and content interest among young readers, even among those in the same grade or the same age.”
“It is our hope that laws that seek to limit access to books and that criminalize teachers, librarians and booksellers will be struck down as unconstitutional,” the Hachette statement concludes, “and that the choice of what book to read remains unregulated by the states.”
The Authors Guild, the nation’s largest author advocacy group—and also a plaintiff in the lawsuit seeking to strike down HB 900—called Follett’s request “alarming,” and is asking publishers not to cooperate.
“We urge publishers not to comply with Follett’s request as it will force them to self-censor and to censor their authors, and it will remove many educationally valuable books from the school market in the state of Texas, depriving students of access to them,” Authors Guild officials said in a statement. “It will also compel speech by forcing publishers to create lists of books that any community in Texas might possibly find ‘sexually relevant’ or offensive, making it appear as though the publishers are tacitly admitting that books listed as ‘Possible SR or SE Content are questionable.’ It could be difficult to sell those books to any school system after such lists are made public, despite the fact that in most cases only a very few parents might find them objectionable.”
. . . .
Follett officials did not comment on the memo for this story. “Follett is aware of the Texas legislation and will comply,” Donald Reinbold, director of strategic business development and content acquisitions for Follett School Solutions, told PW in a brief email. “We remain committed to serving our customers everywhere and will continue to support them as they navigate the required changes.”
In the memo, Follett officials offered some idea of what navigating the new law might look like: The company told publishers that it is preparing a Texas-only view (determined by IP address and account address) for its Titlewave online ordering service, and that the company “will not be putting through” any titles that contain possible sexual content pending the development of “a third party rating program.” Under the law, books rated “sexually explicit” would be banned from Texas schools entirely—and as such, the Follett memo notes, “will not be made available for sale” via Titlewave in Texas.
“Your support in identifying those titles that you know DO NOT fall into those categories will allow us to push through more of your titles from the first day of compliance,” the memo explains. “We have it on good authority that [Texas] sales will come quickly in the fall to get ahead of any additional changes or requirements, so I would ask that you take advantage of this opportunity to identify as many titles as possible and return them to Follett as soon as you can.”
Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly
“We strongly disagree with the idea that rating our books to flag certain content, or having retailers or wholesalers do this, is appropriate or helpful.”
At a certain level I find myself asking the question: why should books be any different from movies or TV shows or video games in this regard? Why is it “censorship” to rate books the same way as any other form of media?
Now, it may be that this law is wrongheaded (I’m inclined to say it is) but tradpub’s reaction to it smells more like “how dare someone question our specialness” than anything else.
Tbf, even as a kid, I preferred books that used rating systems. I like to have a very good idea of what I’m going to consume before I do so.
Tom, books should not “be any different from movies or TV shows or video games in this regard.”
None of them should be “rated.”
I have yet to see any rating system not promptly coopted in favor of culture wars. No, I take that back — the ratings of the Comics Authority weren’t “promptly coopted,” they intentionally started out that way (and that’s far from the only example). As one of teh (very, very out) gays remarked not so long ago, that’s dangerous. Ponder, for a moment, the Nobel Prize in Literature ceremony in 1958, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1974, and general degeneracy.
If there’s a “solution” here, it’s honest (not marketing-oriented), reasonably detailed descriptions. There’s no substitute for parent(s) being involved enough to help their kids make good choices… even when those choices don’t match what the parent(s) would make themselves. But there is no excuse whatsoever for demanding the right to parent someone else’s kids, and more particularly determine even what someone else’s kids are even exposed to.
The fundamental problem with ratings systems is that they are inherently tools of censorship and orthodoxy. Sometimes that’s relatively benign… for a while… maybe… but they never stay that way. Every ratings board eventually discovers that "It was a pleasure to burn."
‘Honest (not marketing-oriented), reasonably detailed descriptions.’
This is no solution at all, but a utopian wish. Explain, please:
(1) who is going to provide the descriptions,
(2) how their honesty is to be determined, and by whom,
(3) how they are to be compensated for their labour without having a monetary interest in the success of the work and therefore a temptation to provide ‘marketing-based’ descriptions,
(4) how these descriptions are to be communicated to the general public,
(5) how parents are to apprise themselves of these detailed descriptions of any book that may happen to be in a library to which their children have been granted access by a third party.
Why don’t you ask for the moon while you’re at it?
That was my point: The “If” preceding the part of my statement you quoted is critical.
There isn’t an externally-imposed “solution.” Reading is dangerous to orthodoxy, and most especially to orthodoxy imposed on others’ … and that’s a feature, not a bug.
To put it another way: Parents need to get involved with their own kids’ books, and music, and video games, and audio/audiovisual media. (Unless, that is, they’ve raised their own kids appropriately so that they trust their own kids’ choices.) Not with mine. Not with my friends’ kids two-thirds of the way across a state that is larger than more European nations and would be the equivalent of the Islamic community in Bradford† vetoing library selections in Norwich.
† Care to take a guess where the reaction to The Satanic Verses was most virulent, and most violent?
The history of the MPAA ratings and the video game rating system suggest that the problem is not nearly as catastrophic as you think it is.
To put it bluntly, parents don’t have time to do a close read/watch/playthrough of everything their kids are consuming or want to consume. Having a quick thing that can say, “this is probably appropriate” or “this is probably not appropriate” is rather helpful for, well, raising your own children.
This might, in theory, work, if:
• The rating system’s overt agendas match one’s own; and
• Neither the rating system as a whole nor the individuals actually doing the ratings have any hidden agendas; and
• The rating system cannot be coopted.
On all evidence: Nope. (Do not get me started on the problems with the MPAA, which I know very well indeed, or with video games, which I know well enough to despise but not in as much detail as the MPAA.)
In tort law, there’s a concept called “open and obvious hazard” — and here, the historical failure of rating systems is the hazard. Instead of walking underneath the piano being winched up the side of the building with obviously frayed ropes, I’m going to the other side of the street. (Which, of course, is exactly where the kind of people who own the penthouse to which that piano is being winched want me.)
But there is no excuse whatsoever for demanding the right to parent someone else’s kids, and more particularly determine even what someone else’s kids are even exposed to.
Movie ratings are parenting someone else’s kids?