URGENT Call to Action - Email Your Senators!

Mass Freedom To Read learned late on Thursday that An Act Regarding Free Expression (renamed S. 2696) has moved out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and will be going to a floor vote next Thursday.

While it is exciting to see this move forward, we are disappointed that some important elements are missing from this draft of the bill. The bill does not include any protections for book creators and only contains weak first amendment protections. Additionally, the bill does not prevent outside agitators from challenging books in Massachusetts communities.

We urge you to contact your state senator and copy bill sponsor Senator Cyr’s office. The timing is tight: please email your senator before Wednesday, Nov. 12!

A sample letter is below for you to use. Please feel free to modify it with who you are and why you are concerned about this issue. Thank you for your advocacy!

Sample Letter

To: Your Senator (Find your state senator here)
cc: julian.cyr@masenate.gov

Dear Senator [NAME], 

As your constituent and an advocate for free expression, I am writing to ask you to support strengthening protections for books in Senate bill 2629, an Act Regarding Free Expression. While this legislation provides important protections for librarians, it falls short of the superior protections for authors, creators, and the First Amendment in neighboring Rhode Island’s Freedom to Read Act passed earlier this year. 

While the bill allows parents, students, and guardians to challenge book removals in state court, it does not allow creators and authors to do so. In its current form, the bill leaves authors unprotected from being discriminated against due to their identity. 

In addition, the standard of “age appropriateness” in the law is weaker than the crucial free speech standard established in Miller v. California. With the degradation of our rights from the federal judiciary, it is important to establish these key protections in state law, so please consider further codifying this standard in this Act. 

Finally, the bill does not restrict challenges to local communities. If a parent of a student objects to the books in their own school district, of course they should be allowed to challenge them, but outsiders who do not have any students in the school district should not be allowed to file time-consuming and expensive book challenges in that district.

The Senate will consider this important legislation next week. Please support Senate bill 2629 with amendments to make it stronger for Massachusetts authors, readers, parents, and students. Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Location (to show your residence)

Announcing Mass Freedom To Read

Mass Freedom to Read is a new coalition that represents Massachusetts parents and readers, authors and creators, libraries, booksellers, and publishers. We believe that freedom of expression, including the freedom to read, is a fundamental American right, protected by the First Amendment.

In the United States, we have the right to access books with a wide range of information and perspectives. We have the right to freely express our own ideas through speech, writing, and art.

In Massachusetts, challenges to library collections, programs, and displays have more than doubled in over the last three years. Massachusetts authors and creators have had their work banned or challenged in dozens of states, and in Massachusetts itself. Massachusetts booksellers have faced harassment and intimidation at their events.

Parents have the right to guide their own children's reading, but parents should not dictate what other people's children are allowed to read. In Massachusetts, with our deep and valued history of patriotism, we know that censorship is the opposite of a patriotic act.

Now is the time for the Massachusetts state legislature to pass a comprehensive Freedom to Read bill that protects librarians and educators from harassment for doing their jobs; and protects authors, creators, booksellers, and publishers from economic harm due to censorship. To that end, we support the passage of An Act Regarding Free Expression (H.3594/S.2328).

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