Globe and Mail: Peel school board faces backlash for removing books published before 2008 from its libraries

Ontario’s Education Minister scolded the Peel District School Board for removing books from its libraries, including literary classics, after concerns were raised about how school officials were assessing and throwing away older books.

In a statement on Wednesday, Stephen Lecce said it was “offensive, illogical and counterintuitive” for the board to remove library books on Canadian history and antisemitism, and literary classics.

“I have written to the board to immediately end this practice,” Mr. Lecce said.

A group made up of parents, teachers and school staff said it appears the board asked its school librarians this year to remove fiction and non-fiction books published before 2008 while assessing collections through an equity lens.

Tom Ellard of the group Libraries not Landfills said that, since then, books that include The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank have been removed from several school library shelves. He said that while he and others support issues of equity and including voices in the library collections, Peel’s decision to remove books published prior to 2008 was arbitrary.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.