Librarians who faced harassment amid the culture War over book bands could soon have more protections a bill making its way through Trenton would prevent the kind of social media trolling and intimidation Librarians like Martha Hickson from North Hunterdon High School experienced over the last year Hickson was called a pedophile and child groomer among other accusations but the bill would also give local school boards some guidance for deciding which books make it onto the shelves our education and child welfare reporter Hannah gross covered the hearing where those on both sides of the issue spoke about it for hours while lawmakers took a vote Hannah joins me now with the details Hannah good to see you so talk to me a little bit about this hearing because the turnout was somewhat unprecedented thanks Bri it was probably the most crowded committee room I've been in since I started here there was more than 70 people in the room listening to four hours of testimony with people on both sides of the issue the majority were in support of the bill the fre to read act and there was also a ton of people in an adjacent overflow room who were coming in and out to testify so this bill the freedom to react um we've known that it's been coming down the pike lawmakers have been working on it what has remained in the bill up to this point yeah so the bill directs the commissioner of education and some other groups including the New Jersey state librarian the New Jersey Association of school librarians to come up with a model policy for librarians to use to to curate their Collections and also for the removal of library books so a set of standards that they can use exactly what about the protections for librarians did we hear from them during this testimony a ton of librarians were there testifying in support of the bill and what this would mean for them because a lot of them have been subject to harassment whether online or in person at School board meetings oftentimes making it hard for them to do their jobs and impacting their health and their mental health so what what in the guidelines then helps schools the districts themselves figure out which books should be accepted so books in school libraries generally are approved by a team of people not just the school librarian oftentimes it's going all the way up to the superintendent for approval of books that are being purchased and a big part of the new bill would be creating removal policies and in order for a book to be removed it must be petitioned by a member of the community so a student a parent a teacher rather than someone from outside of the community so it would make it obsessively harder to ban a book from a school I think it might make it a little bit harder you could say that but also it has clearer guidelines for if someone wanted a book out of the library they would know exactly how to go through that process were some of the complaints coming from folks outside of the district or the community previously is that why they included that stipulation according to the New Jersey Library Association a lot of the challenges have been coming from people outside of a local community trying to challenge a book and some groups have been circulating lists of books that they think don't belong in schools so there is a bit of a concerted effort what did parents rights groups and other opponents have to say about it so a lot of the parents rights groups they had concerns that their children would have access to books they deemed inappropriate or pornographic and that their P their students might be able to get their hands on those books without parent permission while they're in school was there a counter to that from any of the testimony given I mean the Librarians maintain throughout the entire hearing that they have a master's degree in how to appropriately curate these Collections and they know what books are developmentally appropriate and a lot of the books that have been challenged do have lgbtq plus themes and a lot of lgbtq Advocates emphasize that these books are important for people to understand who they are we should note the bill still has a long way to go before him being passed or voted on from the full legislature Hannah gross thanks so much for coming in thank you Bri [Music]