Whereas the overwhelming majority of voters in the United States oppose book bans; Whereas an overwhelming majority of voters in the United States support educators teaching about the civil rights movement, the history and experiences of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, immigrants facing discrimination, and the ongoing effects of racism; Whereas, in 1969, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate ; Whereas, in 1982, a plurality of the Supreme Court of the United States wrote in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), that schools may not remove library books based on narrowly partisan or political grounds , as this kind of censorship will result in official suppression of ideas ; Whereas the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects freedom of speech and the freedom to read and write; Whereas article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers ; Whereas PEN America has identified nearly 3,400 instances of individual books banned, affecting 1,557 unique titles from July 2022 through June 2023 alone, representing a 33-percent increase in bans compared to the prior year of July 2021 through June 2022; Whereas of the 2,532 bans in the 2021–2022 school year, 96 percent of them were enacted without following the best practice guidelines for book challenges outlined by the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the National Council of Teachers of English; Whereas the unimpeded sharing of ideas and the freedom to read are essential to a strong democracy