“The motives behind these changes to collection policies and funding incentives raise serious questions about who public libraries are for in America. William Rodick, who researches representation and culturally responsive teaching in Pre-K and primary education for the nonprofit EdTrust, says the mass relocation of diverse books from developmentally appropriate sections of public libraries into adult sections is a form of “intellectual condescension,” or the idea that young people aren’t capable of dealing with hard topics through literature.

“That becomes manifest by removing opportunities for demonstrating honesty for students,” Rodick told 404 Media.

Rodick says that students already have disproportionate access to spaces outside of classrooms where students can access reading materials. Regardless of where they’re getting their books, students of color and students who are LGBTQ+ aren’t presented in the majority of the books they do have access to—much less so now than just a few years ago.

“And when they are presented, quite often those representations are stereotypes through really negative portrayals that are certainly not going to use the kind of motivation students need to engage with reading,” Rodick said. “The fear that I have is that at some point, we are going to see even greater disparity in outcomes than we already do for literary rates because of perpetual inaccess to quality materials.”

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