[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 87 (Tuesday, May 23, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H2511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                   EDUCATION IS NOT ABOUT CENSORSHIP

  (Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my deep 
concern and outrage that extreme Republicans are moving to cut 
education through McCarthy's default on America act at the same time 
that extreme Republicans are banning books in our libraries and 
classrooms across our country.
  Sadly, last semester alone, there were 1,477 instances of book 
banning. Sadly, these efforts chill speech. They are part of a national 
education scare, a campaign to foment anxiety and anger with the goal 
of suppressing free expression in public education.
  America is not Communist China or authoritarian Russia that ban books 
or Nazi Germany that burns books. Indeed, Anne Frank's ``The Diary of a 
Young Girl'' is now a banned book.
  Over 70 percent of Americans oppose book bans. Americans know 
education is about learning. It is not about censorship.
  A country that does not know its history is bound to repeat it.

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