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WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump announced an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and took questions on a range of topics including his presidential pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, the war in Ukraine, cryptocurrencies and other topics.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Local communities that make decisions to remove or restrict inappropriate and obscene books from their shelves will no longer face federal harassment, according to the Trump administration.

The Department of Education announced late last week it would end the “book ban” investigations based on 11 complaints against school districts. The complaints were based on a “dubious legal theory.”

The Biden-Harris administration ignored longstanding legal precedent to claim that removing sexually explicit books somehow created a “hostile environment for students.”

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigates complaints that schools are discriminating on the basis of a protected class, such as race or sex. The OCR also “rescinded all department guidance,” meaning government bureaucrats can no longer harass schools that decide to remove inappropriate content.

“By dismissing these complaints and eliminating the position and authorities of a so-called ‘book ban coordinator,’ the department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” Acting Secretary of Education Craig Trainor stated in a news release.

Trainor also reiterated the importance of allowing local communities to make decisions.

“The department adheres to the deeply rooted American principle that local control over public education best allows parents and teachers alike to assess the educational needs of their children and communities,” he stated. “Parents and school boards have broad discretion to fulfill that important responsibility.”

The Dept. of Ed. also terminated an agreement with a Georgia school district that had been crafted based on the “hostile environment” theory.

The OCR required the Forsyth County Schools to “post a statement in all of its middle and high schools that embraced Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and encouraged students to make Title IX and Title VI complaints,” according to the news release.

The Department of Education did this despite an employee determining the complaint had no merit. The investigation occurred despite the department acknowledging the content taken off shelves contained “sexually explicit content.”

‘About time’: Pro-family group thanks Trump for protecting kids

The Trump administration’s decision to restore local control drew praise from the pro-family group American Principles Project, which called it “common sense.”

“It’s about time,” Director of Government Affairs Sandra Asuncion told LifeSiteNews on a phone call Tuesday. She said the complaints were “absurd.”

“I’m glad that the Trump administration is acting so quickly to defend parental rights and children rights,” Asuncion said, noting that children have a “right to have their innocence protected.”

She also said local communities and citizens should retain control over questionable content.

“If it’s not the community, then who is it? It’s going to be some high-minded academic who probably doesn’t have kids of their own and hasn’t talked to a real person except another academic in years at a conference,” she said.

Asuncion said parents do not abdicate their “primary right over their children and to form their education,” even if they send them to a public school.

She noted parents have a right to opt their kids out of sex ed classes, for example.

“Children deserve to have their innocence preserved by those around them and those that have the responsibility to recognize it and protect them,” the government affairs director told LifeSiteNews.

The Biden administration had a “disproportionate response” to the controversies. There was a total of 17 complaints lodged under the “book ban” theory, despite claims (which are untrue) of nearly 4,000 attempted book bans in just part of 2024 alone.

She also alluded to situations where parents, to highlight the obscene nature of books, would read from them only to be cut off during public meetings.

“But we’re supposed to say this is a civil rights violation… no, we should be protecting these kids,” she said.

Book banning claims have been debunked by several experts

Several groups that support allowing pornographic content in schools have trumpeted the claim that there are thousands of book bans, or attempts, every year.

Groups including the American Library Association and PEN America have spread this idea. However, it has been debunked by Jay Greene at the Heritage Foundation.

Writing in 2023, Greene shared research that he and others conducted that found about 75 percent of allegedly banned books were in fact available. This included books like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men.”

The idea of widespread censorship has also been challenged by media expert Jeffrey McCall, a journalism professor at DePauw University.

“The major flaw in the argument warning about book bans is that the people who are questioning the content of a school curriculum or the children’s section of a public library aren’t really seeking to ‘ban’ books,” Professor McCall wrote in The Hill in October 2023. “The issue is simply what is suitable for the intended audience of kids. Children are vulnerable in a broad sense. That’s why kids are already protected from many societal influences, let alone being prohibited from buying cigarettes, alcohol and so on.”

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