It's happening here: when book bans hit home
If you're a reader, a student of history, or a writer, it's been appalling to watch book bans proliferate across the nation. As The Reformer reported last month, St. Francis High School and Independent School District 15 recently adopted a policy that defers to Booklooks, a website linked to the far-right group Moms for Liberty when evaluating which books to purchase or pull from shelves.
The result: Hundreds of books are now either banned outright or will likely be pulled from shelves in the near future; this includes classics like The Handmaid's Tale, The Bluest Eye, and soon, perhaps the likes of 'Night' by Elie Wiesel and 'Slaughterhouse Five' by Kurt Vonnegut and hundreds of others.
I graduated from St. Francis High School in 2001. I owe much of my career as a writer — I've written ten books and edited many more — to one of the soon-to-banned books. It was 'Slaughterhouse Five.' It was the year 2000. Frosted tips and Billabong shirts were everywhere. I picked up the book from a spinner in my journalism class. (That teacher was the best teacher I ever had.) I absorbed it, and I proceeded to read every other book by Vonnegut on the spinner, and then Ray Bradbury; soon I was reading Sylvia Plath and Richard Wright. A good book is a springboard to others; the best books lead to a lifetime of a reading.
Rather than trot out generic arguments about why book bans are ill-advised, I want to talk about 'Slaughterhouse Five.' It's a fictionalized story, that like all truly great fiction, is, at its heart, true. Vonnegut was a G.I. in World War II. He was in the 106th Infantry Division and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge. To put that another way: The St. Francis school board wants to ban a novel written by an American serviceman and a member of the Greatest Generation.
Vonnegut was forced to do manual labor in Dresden, and he survived the firebombing of the city in February 1945 by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. 8th Air Force. The resulting firestorm killed perhaps 35,000 people. 'Slaughterhouse Five' is superficially science fiction, but it's really about the insanity of war, the absurdity of surviving one, and more than anything, PTSD. Vonnegut's writing will last forever because he's irreverent, funny, and accessible, but he's also honest and fundamentally decent.
That's why Vonnegut appeals to younger readers; kids aren't just picky eaters; they are picky readers. You have to meet them where they are in terms of attitude, interest, and style. By removing some of the most popular books among young people — classics and newer books alike — the district is depriving students of great books but also the love of reading and learning itself.
And as a rule, if you're banning books, you're afraid of ideas: The Soviets were afraid of capitalism, religion, and freedom of speech. The Nazis loathed the Jews, 'inferior' races, modernism in all its forms, and were racist to their core. The Inquisition banned or targeted works by Copernicus and Galileo and Giordano Bruno because they feared their monopoly on cosmology was at an end. The ideas that Booklooks, and by extension, The St. Francis School Board, fear are plain. Even the most cursory look at its anonymous 'ratings' (available on Internet Archive) shows that the books it targets are by or about women, LGBTQ folks, Black and brown folks, or people who have a 'different' point of view. Like any attempt at censorship, it's an exercise in erasure.
But I can promise you this: It won't work. As the packed school board meetings, recent student protests, and a pair of newly filed lawsuits against the district make clear, people care about the freedom to read, the First Amendment, and the books and characters they love.
This misguided policy has already been an expensive debacle, and the district has made statewide news in the most embarrassing way. If the policy remains in force, it will continue to hurt the district's own students by depriving them of great works of art, and worse, giving them an incomplete, myopic view of the world.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
CBS host pours cold water on liberal outrage to Colbert cancellation, says late-night industry is 'broken'
"CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil is pushing back at the liberal outrage towards his network's cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." "The business is broken," Dokoupil said of the late-night industry on Tuesday. "And what no one seems to acknowledge is that the politics also changed. The business changed and so did the politics, and it got way more one-sided than anything Johnny Carson was ever doing. I think we should reflect on those changes as well. It's been a big shift culturally in that regard also." Dokoupil and his morning colleagues reacted to the scathing monologue from "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who didn't buy CBS' explanation that its decision to cancel Stephen Colbert's late-night show was purely a financial one. Stewart linked the cancellation to parent company Paramount's forthcoming $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, which is seeking approval from the Trump administration's FCC, touting to his corporate bosses, "The shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control, a not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those f---ing shows." Dokoupil suggested Stewart, whose Comedy Central show is also under the Paramount umbrella, oversold late-night contributions to the company's bottom line. "I don't have an MBA, but he's not right that the merger, the $8 billion, is based on reruns of a comedy show," the CBS host said. "People are buying the movies and the sitcoms and the sports. They're not based on reruns of us, either. So I think he's wrong about that." His co-host Gayle King, a frequent guest on 'The Late Show,' remained defensive of Colbert, telling Dokoupil, "I think many people feel there's another way to do it." "It's a very difficult position, in the end, to disagree with something that the company is doing, but also still loving your job and loving what you do," King said before urging viewers to watch Stewart's full monologue. Liberals have been outraged over Colbert's shocking cancellation, which will take effect in May 2026. Many of them, including Stewart, believe the move was meant to kowtow to President Donald Trump. But a report from Puck's Matt Belloni showed that Colbert's show was costing the network $40 million a year and that it had been running on a whopping $100 million budget per season. While the liberal late-night hosts are struggling, Fox News Channel's "Gutfeld!" has surged to become late-night's highest-rated program. In the second quarter of 2025, the show notched 3 million viewers and 365,000 in the 25-54 age demographic at the 10 p.m. ET hour, putting it ahead of "The Late Show," "The Daily Show," and late-night programs on ABC and NBC.
Fast Company
10 hours ago
- Fast Company
Jon Stewart says CBS and Paramount get their value from programming like ‘The Late Show' with Stephen Colbert
Jon Stewart, who hosted The Daily Show on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2015 and has returned for once-a-week hosting stints since 2024, lashed out at his show's parent company for choosing to 'unceremoniously' end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and discontinue the franchise. In a segment on Monday, Stewart noted his well-documented allegiance to Colbert, even showing a photo of the duo when they were both on The Daily Show from 1999 to 2005. While statements about the events surrounding the cancellation of The Late Show have been made by many celebrities on social media—and even by hosts of other late-night programs—Stewart added to the conversation by boldly calling out CBS for appearing to overlook the value that compelling late-night programs bring to the media giants that own them. 'I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake, but understand this: Truly, the shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control—a not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those fucking shows—that's what made you that money,' Stewart said directly into the camera. The $8 billion that Stewart is referring to is the proposed merger between Paramount Global, which owns CBS, and Skydance, a production company founded and helmed by David Ellison, son of tech billionaire and Trump supporter Larry Ellison. The deal has faced regulatory hurdles, first under the Biden administration and then under the Trump administration. All of this also comes as CBS News announced in July that it will settle a lawsuit filed against 60 Minutes by Trump, who claims that the show unfairly edited an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to make her look more favorable. 'The fact that CBS didn't try to save their No. 1-rated network late-night franchise that's been on the air for over three decades is part of what's making everyone wonder, was this purely financial or maybe the path of least-resistance for your $8 billion merger?' Stewart asked on his show. Fast Company reached out to CBS, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media. None immediately responded to a request for comment. CBS has referred to the decision to cancel The Late Show as a financial one and unrelated to the show's content, citing a 'challenging backdrop' for late-night television. Although The Late Show has reportedly been losing roughly $40 million a year, according to a source cited by the Wall Street Journal, Stewart's larger point is buoyed by the fact that Paramount earns more than half of its revenue from its television businesses. Indeed, Paramount has played up its TV assets, including The Late Show and much of its news content, in its pitch to investors about the proposed merger. Colbert's image appears multiple times on the 'New Paramount' PowerPoint presentation, with the company touting CBS as a leader in late-night TV. Ratings from Nielsen likewise show The Late Show as the top-rated show in its block, with about 2.417 million viewers across 41 new episodes. 'If you believe, as corporations or as networks, you can make yourself so innocuous, that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar? A—why would anyone watch you? And B—you are fucking wrong,' Stewart said.
Fast Company
10 hours ago
- Fast Company
Why Colbert's cancellation is lighting a fire under every late-night host
BY By axing The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last week, CBS not only put an expiration date on TV's No. 1 late-night talk show —the network also put an enormous target on its own back. In the days since CBS made the announcement that the show would be ending in May 2026, all current late-night talk show hosts have bound together in a show of support for Colbert. That support has taken the form of savage jokes about CBS, which canceled Colbert's show just days after he called the $16 million settlement between CBS parent company Paramount and President Donald Trump ' a big fat bribe.' Though Paramount stressed that the cancellation was ultimately a financial decision, the company's leadership is clearly unconcerned about how it looks to cancel a show led by one of the president's critics while its $8 billion merger with Skydance is pending before that same president's Federal Communications Commission chair. But Colbert and his fellow late-night hosts aren't afraid to say exactly what the show's pending cancellation looks like—punishment from a corporate parent for putting its business at risk. If the first show of his precancellation run is any indicator, Colbert is ready to go out the same way he rose to No. 1, by lobbing scathing jokes at Trump and those who help prop him up. And as his show's demise lays bare the precarious situation late night is in, Colbert's peers seem ready to enter their DGAF eras as well. Colbert's anti-Trump jokes made his show more political Trump's election in 2016, just one year into Colbert's tenure, was crucial to helping the host find his footing. He'd had a bit of a rocky transition from his satirical Comedy Central series, The Colbert Report, which he'd hosted in character as a Bill O'Reilly-like blowhard. It took him some time—and some unprecedented times—to figure out the best way to be himself on TV. Prior to Trump's election, the top late-night talk show was The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, mainly known for its host's affable banter with celebrities and goofy party games. Trump's election seemed to light a fire under late-night TV, though, offering most of the hosts a sense of purpose and more nightly material than they could possibly handle. As Fallon remained largely apolitical, Colbert pounced. By February 2017, he snatched the top spot of late night for the first time, and then maintained it throughout the following season. Colbert's peers Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel also grew into their new roles as thorns in the president's side, while Fallon floundered. Late night is floundering—especially at CBS But amid a downturn in ratings, even Colbert's viewership has softened as time has gone on. Between the political exhaustion that followed the 2020 election and a steady increase in cord-cutting in U.S. households, late-night TV ratings have fallen steadily for five years. Colbert now receives an average of 2.47 million viewers per show, down more than a million from his 2018-2019 peak. Late-night ad revenue fell by half from 2018 to 2024, from $439 million to just $220 million. Even Trump's return to the White House, with all its attendant chaos, couldn't entice viewers back to late night this year, with ratings down across the board even from last fall. CBS has had an especially tough time programming late night. After host James Corden left The Late Late Show in 2023, CBS opted to end the series rather than find a new host, taking a swing by airing the talk show-game show amalgam After Midnight in its time slot. That show ended in June after two seasons, when host Taylor Tomlinson bowed out to focus on stand-up. Amid the tumult, Colbert and his show's pole position among his peers seemed like an asset for the network. But given his critique of Paramount's Trump settlement—which heads off a legal battle over the president's appearance on 60 Minutes last fall, which he alleged was edited unfairly—Colbert's cancellation can easily be perceived as a potential additional condition for the merger. Trump has certainly not done anything to assuage that notion, gloating about it on Truth Social over the weekend. But Colbert and his late-night compatriots are signaling that they're ready to call it as they see it now that Colbert's days at CBS are numbered. How late-night hosts responded Kimmel was the first of the hosts to respond. In a since-lapsed Instagram story on Saturday, July 19, the host wrote: 'Love you, Stephen. Fu*k you and all your Sheldons, CBS' (a nod to the main character from the network's 12-season hit The Big Bang Theory and its 7-season spin-off Young Sheldon). Next came Jon Stewart's righteously irate, f-bomb-heavy monologue on Monday night's episode of The Daily Show. While the host admitted the fiscal realities of late-night TV in 2025, comparing it to 'operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside of a Tower Records,' he blasted the network for not doing more to save the top show in the format. Stewart concluded that despite those financial challenges, the cancellation was ultimately due to the 'fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions.' He then led a choir and the audience in a chant of 'Go fuck yourselves,' aimed at corporations, including Paramount, who have demonstrated fealty to Trump. Finally, just after The Daily Show came the first episode of The Late Show in what may come to be known as its DGAF era. ' The gloves are off,' the host said early on in the episode, and then spent the rest of the runtime giving a preview of what that will look like. Perhaps taking a cue from Stewart, Colbert responded to Trump's gloating over his cancellation by telling the president, 'Go fuck yourself.' One particular moment from the episode, though, was notable both for its humor and its sprawling show of solidarity. A parade of famous friends including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Weird Al Yankovic, and Adam Sandler showed up for an elaborate bit based on last week's Coldplay kiss-cam fiasco —and they were joined by Colbert's peers: Meyers, Stewart, and Last Week Tonight host John Oliver. All of these hosts standing united in purpose (Jimmy Fallon separately cracked jokes in support of Colbert on The Tonight Show) is a signal that late night is poised to get its biggest jolt since the early days of Trump's first term. These hosts may be about to crack jokes like there's no tomorrow, because for the first time in late night's storied history, there might not be. The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is this Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joe Berkowitz is a contributing writer for Fast Company, where he explores all things digital culture, especially how we live, work, and do business in a rapidly changing information environment. His coverage runs the gamut from profiles of interesting businesses and creators, the streaming wars, social media, as well as the objects and technology that define our lives. More
