Tag: Books

  • 5 laws FIRE wants on the books to protect free speech

    5 laws FIRE wants on the books to protect free speech

    Even with the robust protections offered to us by the First Amendment and the decades of decisions made by our federal and Supreme courts, defending free speech is still difficult business. Infringements on our rights often take advantage of loopholes and gaps in our legal frameworks, leading to actions — particularly from those in power — that violate our expressive rights and chill free speech.

    That’s why FIRE has long championed a variety of proposals to help safeguard free expression from government attacks and abuse, including federal legislation. But what would that legislation look like?

    Here are five legislative proposals FIRE has recommended to Congress to bolster free speech rights for everyone and make censorship by federal officials more difficult — no matter what party is in power.

    Improve transparency and accountability for jawboning 

    “Jawboning” refers to situations in which a government official informally coerces a private party to censor constitutionally protected speech. 

    For example, when the head of New York’s Department of Financial Services threatened to wield her regulatory powers over several insurance companies unless they stopped doing business with the National Rifle Association — because she didn’t like its viewpoint — that was textbook jawboning. The NRA sued, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that these acts, if proven, are unconstitutional.

    More recently, when FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened Disney and ABC over talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s comments regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination, leading to Kimmel’s suspension, that was also a clear case of jawboning. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    Jawboning is a growing threat to free speech as more discourse happens on social media, where the government can reach out to platforms behind closed doors and censor speech without anyone else — including the speaker — knowing the government was involved. When this happens, civil society and the public cannot track what’s happening or adequately respond. Often, it’s only through the leaks of information after the fact that we even become aware it happened at all, as we saw with the Twitter Files.

    What is jawboning? And does it violate the First Amendment?

    Indirect government censorship is still government censorship — and it must be stopped.


    Read More

    As we’ll get into more deeply below, we’d like to see legislation to help deter these kinds of First Amendment violations, including jawboning, by allowing people to sue federal officials for damages when they violate constitutional rights.

    However, for this to be effective against jawboning on social media platforms, we will need greater transparency into the government’s communications with tech companies. To achieve that, FIRE recommends Congress pass legislation to require federal officials to publicly report their communications with social media companies about user content on their platforms. One option is FIRE’s Social Media Administrative Reporting Transparency (or SMART) Act, which accompanied our Report on Social Media.

    By forcing officials to either hold off on jawboning or do it out in public, where they’ll be subject to scrutiny and possible damage awards, we can curb backdoor censorship. 

    Codify First Amendment protections on campus

    FIRE also recommends Congress pass the Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act, or similar campus speech legislation, to better protect First Amendment rights at public universities by putting existing constitutional protections into federal statute. 

    This includes ending “free speech zones,” where speech is restricted campuswide except for small, designated areas — often remote and easily ignored — effectively nullifying student expression. It also includes the prohibition of excessive security fees that colleges sometimes impose on events involving controversial speakers, as a thinly veiled attempt to stop the event from happening.

    Free Speech Zones

    Free speech zones limit expressive activity to small and/or out-of-the-way areas. They are usually unconstitutional on college campuses.


    Read More

    We’ve also long supported legislative efforts to rectify the Department of Education’s abuse of antidiscrimination law to suppress protected speech. One important thing Congress can do is to codify the Supreme Court’s Davis standard for when peer-on-peer harassment creates a hostile environment in violation of federal civil rights laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, or its sister statute, Title IX. Under Davis, protected speech only rises to a violation of these statutes if it is:

    So severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and . . . so undermines and detracts from the victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.

    The Education Department under both Presidents Obama and Biden explicitly claimed that Davis did not apply to its regulatory activities (only to civil lawsuits brought under federal antidiscrimination laws). Nor is the Trump administration following Davis in its Title VI enforcement efforts. Instead, under each administration, the Education Department has concocted similar-sounding standards that (unlike Davis) can allow a single instance of protected speech to violate Title VI or IX. This pressures schools to suppress any speech that is deemed hurtful to protected groups, leading campuses to commit an endless stream of free speech violations. The Davis standard prevents this while still ensuring the Department can address actual, undeniable discriminatory harassment.

    We also recommend pairing the Davis codification with a codification of religion as a protected class under Title VI, and codification of longstanding federal guidance that says Jewish students and other groups of shared ethnicity can avail themselves of Title VI, based on its protections against discrimination on the basis of national origin. Taking these steps would create another protection against genuine student harassment without infringing on other students’ free speech rights.

    Let people sue federal officials for damages when they violate constitutional rights

    Much of the censorship federal officials engage in is already illegal. In many cases, these officials are committing straightforward constitutional and statutory violations, and asserting authority that they simply don’t have. 

    When state officials violate constitutional rights, including under the First Amendment, victims can sue them to obtain monetary damages and can collect attorneys’ fees. This provides a direct, personal incentive for state officials to respect Americans’ rights.

    Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist at the federal level. Federal officials can only be sued to get the violations to stop, not to actually get compensation or accountability. This gives officials an incentive to continue their unconstitutional behavior because they have no skin in the game. They may be stopped after the fact, but they aren’t personally deterred from committing the violation in the first place.

    FIRE recommends Congress pass legislation to let people sue for damages when federal officials violate someone’s constitutional rights. This would create a stronger incentive for federal officials to respect Americans’ rights by giving victims teeth when fighting back.

    Create strong anti-SLAPP rules in federal court

    A strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, is a frivolous lawsuit someone files in order to punish a critic or opponent for their speech. The idea of a SLAPP is not to win on the merits of the case, but to retaliate against someone exercising their First Amendment rights. People who engage in SLAPPs do this by dragging their targets through a costly court process, or getting them to settle and retract their speech to avoid such costs. 

    Too often, the powerful use SLAPPs to send a clear, speech-chilling message: “Speak out against me, and I will ruin you.”

    Most of these lawsuits come from private individuals and corporations, but lawsuits by government officials against their critics — including news outlets — have also become a problem in recent years. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News in June, arguing that host Jesse Watters “misleadingly edited a video” to claim that Newsom lied about a phone call he’d had with President Trump. Or consider President Trump’s $15 million suit, filed last month against Penguin Random House and The New York Times for news articles he claims were designed to limit his prospects in the 2024 presidential election.

    For the rich, free speech — for others, a SLAPP in the face

    Texas lawmakers once stood up for free speech. Now, some seem more interested in helping the rich sue critics into silence.


    Read More

    Many states have passed robust protections against SLAPPs, which speed up the process to dismiss frivolous cases and require the person who filed the SLAPP to pay the other side’s attorneys’ fees. However, plaintiffs can often evade state anti-SLAPP laws by filing in federal court. FIRE recommends Congress pass a federal anti-SLAPP law to plug that gap.

    Remove the FCC’s ability to regulate broadcast content

    Last, but certainly not least, FIRE also recommends Congress pass legislation to clarify that the FCC has no authority to regulate content on broadcast TV and radio.

    In every other medium of communication, the First Amendment bars the government from regulating the content of protected speech unless the action can survive strict constitutional scrutiny. Broadcast TV and radio, however, have been treated somewhat differently. Because the “airwaves” were historically seen as a finite resource, and one of only a small number of ways to share speech with a mass audience, the Supreme Court allowed the FCC to engage in some regulation of content by broadcasters.

    But that leeway has always been minimal, and the Communications Act specifically denies the FCC the power of censorship. Courts over the past five decades have also grown increasingly skeptical of the few areas of content regulation that were considered permissible. Recently, FCC officials have ignored these developments and mischaracterized the FCC’s “public interest” authority as a blank check to regulate content. It isn’t — and never was.

    Congress can play an important role by clarifying that the “scarcity rationale,” which was originally thought to support different constitutional treatment for the broadcast medium, has long since been eclipsed by technological changes. It actually said so once before, when it adopted the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but it should be more explicit this time by also deleting the few areas where the statute authorizes content regulation.

    This should make clear that recent examples of the FCC’s misuse of the public interest standard are being beyond its authority. A prime instance of this is Chairman Carr’s invocation of the public interest standard to threaten ABC over the content of Jimmy Kimmel’s speech. This would also make clear that historic examples, such as the Democratic National Committee’s campaign during the Kennedy administration of filing FCC complaints to silence conservative radio commenters, were illegitimate.

    Carr’s threats to ABC are jawboning any way you slice it

    ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel hours after FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested they could face consequences for remarks Kimmel made in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder.


    Read More

    Another recent example of the FCC’s weaponization of its authorities is the FCC’s various actions to dust off an obscure policy against “news distortion” as a way to oversee broadcasters’ editorial judgments. As FIRE has noted in an FCC filing, that policy, originally designed to address “deliberate distortion or staging” of news events, was almost never invoked or enforced. That is for good reason: FCC commissioners understood that the commission could not function as the nation’s speech police. And until the past few months, the commission realized both the Communications Act and the First Amendment barred any attempt to revitalize the news distortion policy. Congress should remind the FCC of that fact.

    Earlier this year, FIRE filed a comment encouraging the FCC to withdraw these and all of its other content-based regulations. A few of those regulations are required by federal law, and so it’s up to Congress to repeal them. Others are just within the FCC’s interpretation of its authority. To address those, we recommend Congress explicitly bar the FCC from regulating any constitutionally protected content.

    Why this matters now, and why it will always matter

    The bottom line with all of these proposed laws is simple: we must limit the government’s power to censor either directly or indirectly.

    Although free speech issues are getting more attention this year as a result of the current administration’s actions, the threats these laws are designed to address began before our current political turmoil, and will continue long after it ends — unless Congress steps in to do something about it. Our goal is not to merely prevent one side or the other from abusing their power and targeting protected speech; it is to prevent any administration from doing so. This approach is the only way to successfully protect our First Amendment rights and the democratic culture it is meant to preserve.

    Source link

  • Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong

    Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong

    by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
    October 27, 2025

    Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has spent his career evaluating education research and helping teachers figure out what works best in the classroom. A leader of the National Reading Panel, whose 2000 report helped shape what’s now known as the “science of reading,” Shanahan has long influenced literacy instruction in the United States. He also served on the National Institute for Literacy’s advisory board in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

    Shanahan is a scholar whom I regularly consult when I come across a reading study, and so I was eager to interview him about his new book, “Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives.” (Harvard Education Press, September 2025). In it, Shanahan takes aim at one of the most common teaching practices in American classrooms: matching students with “just-right” books. 

    He argues that the approach — where students read different texts depending on their assessed reading level — is holding many children back. Teachers spend too much time testing students and assigning leveled books, he says, instead of helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts.

    “American children are being prevented from doing better in reading by a longstanding commitment to a pedagogical theory that insists students are best taught with books they can already read,” Shanahan writes in his book. “Reading is so often taught in small groups — not so teachers can guide efforts to negotiate difficult books, but to ensure the books are easy enough that not much guidance is needed.”

    Comprehension, he says, doesn’t grow that way.

    The trouble with leveled reading

    Grouping students by ability and assigning easier or harder books — a practice known as leveled reading — remains deeply embedded in U.S. schools. A 2018 Thomas B. Fordham Institute survey found that 62 percent of upper elementary teachers and more than half of middle school teachers teach at students’ reading level rather than at grade level.  

    That may sound sensible, but Shanahan says it’s not helping anyone and is even leading teachers to dispense with reading altogether. “In social studies and science, and these days, even in English classes,” he said in an interview, “teachers either don’t assign any readings or they read the texts to the students.” Struggling readers aren’t being given the chance — or the tools — to tackle complex material on their own.

    Instead, Shanahan believes all students should read grade-level texts together, with teachers providing more support for those who need it.

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    “What I’m recommending is instructional differentiation,” he said in our interview. “Everyone will have the same instructional goal — we’re all going to learn to read the fourth-grade text. I might teach a whole-class lesson and then let some kids move on to independent work while others get more help. Maybe the ones who didn’t get it, read the text again with my support. By the end, more students will have reached the learning goal — and tomorrow the whole class can take on another text.”

    27 different ways

    Shanahan’s approach doesn’t mean throwing kids into the deep end without help. His book outlines a toolbox of strategies for tackling difficult texts, such as looking up unfamiliar vocabulary, rereading confusing passages, or breaking down long sentences. “You can tip over into successful reading 27 different ways,” he said, and he hopes future researchers discover many more. 

    He is skeptical of drilling students on skills like identifying the main idea or making inferences. “We’ve treated test questions as the skill,” he said. “That doesn’t work.”

    There is widespread frustration over the deterioration of American reading achievement, especially among middle schoolers. (Thirty-nine percent of eighth graders cannot reach the lowest of three achievement levels, called “basic,” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.) But there is little agreement among reading advocates on how to fix the problem. Some argue that what children primarily need is more knowledge to grasp unfamiliar ideas in a new reading passage, but Shanahan argues that background knowledge won’t be sufficient or as powerful as explicit comprehension instruction. Other reading experts agree. Nonie Lesaux, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education who specializes in literacy in her own academic work, endorsed Shanahan’s argument in an October 2025 online discussion of the new book. 

    Shanahan is most persuasive in pointing out that there isn’t strong experimental evidence to show that reading achievement goes up more when students read a text at their individual level. By contrast, a 2024 analysis found that the most effective schools are those that keep instruction at grade level. Still, Shanahan acknowledges that more research is needed to pinpoint which comprehension strategies work best for which students and in which circumstances.

    Misunderstanding Vygotsky

    Teachers often cite the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” to justify giving students books that are neither too easy nor too hard. But Shanahan says that’s a misunderstanding of Vygotsky’s work.

    Vygotsky believed teachers should guide students to learn challenging things they cannot yet do on their own, he said.

    He offers an analogy: a mother teaching her child to tie their shoes. At first, she demonstrates while narrating the steps aloud. Then the child does one step, and she finishes the rest. Over time, the mother gradually releases control and the child ties a bow on his own. “Leveled reading,” Shanahan said, “is like saying, ‘Why don’t we just get Velcro?’ This is about real teaching. ‘Boys and girls, you don’t know how to ride this bike yet, but I’m going to make sure you do by the time we’re done.’ ”

    Related: What happens to reading comprehension when students focus on the main idea

    Shanahan’s critique of reading instruction applies mainly from second grade onward, after children learn how to read and are focusing on understanding what they read. In kindergarten and first grade, when children are still learning phonics and how to decode the words on the page, the research evidence against small group instruction with different level texts isn’t as strong, he said. 

    Learning to read first – decoding – is important. Shanahan says there are rare exceptions to teaching all children at grade level. 

    “If a fifth grader still can’t read,” Shanahan said, “I wouldn’t make that child read a fifth-grade text.” That child might need separate instruction from a reading specialist.

    Advanced readers, meanwhile, can be challenged in other ways, Shanahan suggests, through independent reading time, skipping ahead to higher-grade reading classes, or by exploring complex ideas within grade-level texts.

    The role of AI — and parents

    Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to rewrite texts for different difficulty levels. Shanahan is skeptical of that approach. Simpler texts, whether written by humans or generated by AI, don’t teach students to improve their reading ability, he argues.

    Still, he’s intrigued by the idea of using AI to help students “climb the stairs” by instantly modifying a single text to a range of reading levels, say, to third-, fifth- and seventh-grade levels, and having students read them in quick succession. Whether that boosts comprehension is still unknown and needs to be studied.

    AI might be most helpful to teachers, Shanahan suspects, to help point to a sentence or a passage that tends to confuse students or trip them up. The teacher can then address those common difficulties in class. 

    Shanahan worries about what happens outside of school: Kids aren’t reading much at all.

    He urges parents to let children read whatever they enjoy — regardless if it’s above or below their level — but to set consistent expectations. “Nagging may not be effective,” he said. “But you can be specific: ‘After dinner Thursday, read the first chapter. When you’re done, we’ll talk about it, and then you can play a computer game or go on your phone.’ ”

    Too often, he says, parents back down when kids resist. “They are the kids. We are the adults,” Shanahan said. “We’re responsible. Let’s step up and do what’s right for them.”

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

    This story about reading levels was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-shanahan-leveled-reading/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

    <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=113055&amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-shanahan-leveled-reading/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>

    Source link

  • Nevada Funding for Dolly Parton Book Program in Clark County Dries Up – The 74

    Nevada Funding for Dolly Parton Book Program in Clark County Dries Up – The 74


    Join our zero2eight Substack community for more discussion about the latest news in early care and education. Sign up now.

    Over the past two years, upwards of 18,000 young children in the Las Vegas metro area have received free monthly books in the mail as part of an early literacy program started by country icon Dolly Parton. But that ends this month.

    Storied Inc., the Clark County-based nonprofit partner for Parton’s Imagination Library, last week announced to parents and guardians that its October books would be the last until additional funding for the program is secured. The program, when funded, provides a free, age-appropriate monthly book to children 0 to 5 years old.

    According to Meredith Helmick, executive director of Storied, the nonprofit sought funding from the Nevada State Legislature earlier this year to keep the program going after an initial two-years of state grant funding ended, but they came up empty handed.

    Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager sponsored a bill to appropriate $3.9 million to the United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra, which currently runs the Imagination Library for Washoe County residents, to expand the program statewide. The bill was referred to the Assembly Committee on Ways & Means, where it languished until the end of the regular session without a hearing or even a mention, according to the legislature’s website.

    Helmick also hoped the nonprofit program might be able to secure funding through Senate Bill 460, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s omnibus education legislation.

    An early version of that bill appropriated $50 million for early childhood literacy readiness programs, but an amendment reduced that to $0 for the fiscal year beginning July 2025 and $12 million for the fiscal year beginning July 2026. Helmick says lawmakers chose to prioritize expansion of preschool seats, a Cannizzaro priority.

    SB460 was heavily negotiated and amended to include many of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s education priorities. Those priorities included setting aside $7 million in grant funding for charter school transportation.

    It appears those other priorities came at the expense of existing innovative programs that were working.

    Helmick says a survey of her families last year found 62% of them had fewer than 20 children’s books in their homes before enrolling their children in the program.

    “This program is such a low cost, high reward program,” she added.

    Helmick is hopeful the program can return to the Las Vegas area. She says Storied is having conversations with large companies and other nonprofits, reaching out to elected officials at all levels of government, and urging their supporters to do the same.

    “We’ve heard rumors of a special session,” she adds. “Can we rewrite SB460 to include the language that it took out? Are there other funds that we could add or tap into that we could fit under? Maybe that’s an avenue.”

    ‘It isn’t just about the books’

    Meredith Helmick and her husband, Kyle, were inspired to start Storied Inc. after attempting to sign up their daughter for Imagination Library only to learn the nationwide program didn’t serve their area.

    Dolly Parton launched Imagination Library in 1995 and the program has since given out more than 250 million free books to children in the United States and four other countries.

    Storied Inc. is one of several partners running the program in Nevada. According to Helmick, the other partners have managed to continue their programs, either in whole or by scaling down the number of kids served.

    The sheer size of Clark County’s population makes that a tougher task for Storied. According to the Imagination Library’s website, nearly 29,000 Nevada children are enrolled, the vast majority through Storied.

    Helmick says that before they even had a chance to market the program or figure out stable funding, an intrepid stranger found the sign up form and shared it on a social media group for parents in Las Vegas.

    “In 48 hours, we had 3,500 kids registered,” she recalls. “It was, like, ‘I guess we’re doing it now.’ But it all worked out beautifully.”

    From there, the program quickly grew just by word of mouth. It was funded from June 2023 to July 2025 by a grant from the state’s Early Childhood Innovative Literacy Program. Participation fluctuates each month as kids are signed up or age out at 5 years old, but Helmick says it stays in the range of 18,000 or 19,000 thousand children spanning most of Clark County.

    (Boulder City residents have a dedicated partner, Reading to Z, which currently serves fewer than 200 kids. Rural Clark County residents who live in Valley Electric Association’s service area can sign up for a program run by the energy cooperative’s charitable foundation.)

    Over the summer, with the funding drying up, Storied stopped accepting new kids into the program.

    “We didn’t want to disappoint families” by starting to send them books only to stop sending them a few months later, said Helmick. “One thing that sets (Imagination Library) apart is these books are sent directly to their home. I am a huge proponent of libraries. I’m there practically every week. But not everybody is able to do that. That is a barrier.”

    Additionally, the books arrive addressed to the child.

    “Getting it in the mail, the label with their name, it gives them ownership of the book,” says Helmick. “It makes a huge difference. I didn’t realize it until I heard it from families.”

    On the inside of each book cover is a note from Imagination Library with tips for parents on conversations they can have with their child about the book, or questions they can ask to boost critical thinking and early reading skills.

    “It isn’t just about the books and the words and the stories you’re reading with your kids,” said Helmick. “It’s sitting together side by side. It’s having conversations with them.”

    Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected].


    Did you use this article in your work?

    We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how

    Source link

  • Johns Hopkins Press Plans to License Books to Train AI

    Johns Hopkins Press Plans to License Books to Train AI

    Authors have until the end of August to opt out.

    SvetaZi/iStock/Getty Images

    Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) is the latest academic publisher to announce plans to license its books to train proprietary large language models. According to an email JHUP sent to authors Tuesday, those who want to opt out of the licensing agreement have until Aug. 31 to sign an addendum to their contracts; otherwise their work is fair game.

    The move comes as Johns Hopkins University—the nation’s largest spender on university-based research and development—is facing big budget holes created by the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to federal grants.

    “While we do not anticipate huge financial gain for individual books, the cumulative revenue [from LLM licensing deals] would be meaningful for Johns Hopkins University Press and our mission,” read the email sent to authors. “As we anticipate contraction in the higher-education market, these funds can help to sustain our important work as a non-profit publisher.”

    While JHUP is not currently operating at a deficit, its executive director, Barbara Kline Pope, said in an email to Inside Higher Ed that the publisher is “exploring how our financial model may need to evolve over the coming years.” Pope did not answer Inside Higher Ed’s specific questions about which company or companies it plans to license book content to, but said that it’s “currently exploring partnerships with both general AI companies and those focused on specialized content and inference models like Retrieval-Augmented Generation,” which can incorporate external information sources to enhance the authority of an LLM’s response.

    The press maintains a backlist of about 3,000 titles and publishes roughly 150 new books a year by faculty and other experts in fields such as public health, science, higher education and the humanities. It told authors that they can expect to receive “modest” returns of less than $100 per title per license.

    While JHUP did not provide a specific dollar figure for how much revenue it expects to generate from the licensing agreement, some of the biggest scholarly publishers have already proven that there’s money to be made in licensing content to AI companies.

    In the two-plus years since generative artificial intelligence tools have gone mainstream, major for-profit academic publishers, including Wiley and Informa (Taylor & Francis’s parent company), have signed agreements with AI companies. While some optimistic authors and observers have said such deals mean well-researched, accurate data will be used to train AI models, others have pushed back. Last summer, authors were outraged after Taylor & Francis failed to notify them before selling their work to Microsoft for $10 million. By the end of 2024, Taylor & Francis reported a $75 million profit as a result of the sale, which boosted its underlying revenue growth from 3 percent to 15 percent in one year, according to Bloomberg.

    In addition to JHUP, other nonprofit publishers are jumping on the AI bandwagon—or at least thinking about it. Last year, Oxford University Press confirmed it was working with AI companies to develop LLMs, while the university itself launched a five-year partnership with OpenAI this past spring. Cambridge University Press is still in the process of weighing AI licensing agreements, though it’s also given authors the opportunity to opt out of any future AI-related aggregation efforts. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press said in November that multiple AI companies have approached about a licensing agreement; it responded by asking authors for their input and has not publicly announced a deal.

    In its notice to authors this week, JHUP said it spent the last year weighing the possibility of licensing its works to train LLMs. In addition to potential financial gain, the press explained that it is deciding to move forward now because an LLM licensing agreement would make authors’ work more discoverable by their intended readers, create some guardrails around content use amid increasing concerns that major LLM companies are already scraping pirated versions of JHUP’s book content, and make a stronger legal case that such companies should be required to pay for access to the publisher’s content.

    Sharon Ann Murphy, a history and classics professor at Providence College in Rhode Island who signed two contracts with JHUP long before the rise of LLMs, said she was not surprised—but nonetheless upset—by the notice from JHUP, which includes language from the opt-out addendum. It requires authors who don’t want to license their work to acknowledge that in addition to not receiving any AI-related royalties, “the sales and reach of the Work may suffer as a result of or in relation to the fact that Hopkins Press will not exercise AI Rights with respect to the Work.”

    Murphy said she interpreted JHUP’s opt-out clause to mean that authors “are agreeing that they’re going to lose revenue because of this and Hopkins has no responsibility to protect us.”

    Murphy is also skeptical of JHUP’s claims in its email to authors that if LLMs adopt technologies that credit the sources of AI-generated response, it will give readers the ability “to identify and click through to the original source” and is “the best way to continue to engage with readers and disseminate (authors’) work widely.”

    “They’re saying that somehow this will promote our work, but that’s a specious argument. That’s not how AI models work,” Murphy said. “Academic presses are operating on shoestring budgets, but this seems really short-sighted. Academic presses are in the business of creating real knowledge, but AI is in the business of hallucinating and making stuff up.”

    Annette Windhorn, a spokesperson for the Association of University Presses, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that she’s not sure just how many academic presses have agreed to license their content to AI companies.

    “An internal query to member presses more than a year ago did reveal that a number of presses had been approached by a variety of companies, but almost none were at that time actually considering an agreement and many presses were deferring initial decision points to university counsel,” she wrote. “Our members are following developments closely, but moving with caution in areas that may impact their authors’, their institutions’, or their own rights and responsibilities.”

    Source link

  • Why stories still matter in a fast-moving world

    Why stories still matter in a fast-moving world

    Key points:

    Seventeen years after Suzanne Collins first introduced us to The Hunger Games, the world is still captivated by Panem. The latest installment, Sunrise on the Reaping, dives into Haymitch’s backstory and has been called a “propulsive and heart-wrenching addition” to the series by The New York Times. For many of us, books like these aren’t just stories–they’re cultural moments.

    I remember reading the original trilogy on my iPad while training for a half-marathon. Katniss’ fight against the Capitol powered me through some of my longest runs. That’s the magic of books: They meet us where we are and carry us somewhere else entirely. They become part of our personal history, woven into our memories and milestones.

    But the power of books goes far beyond personal nostalgia. When a major title drops, it’s not just a release date–it’s a shared experience. Readers rush to get their hands on it. Social media lights up with reactions. Libraries field waitlists. These moments remind us why books matter. They connect us, challenge us, and inspire us.

    This fall, we’re about to experience two more of these moments. On October 21, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Partypooper hits shelves. Jeff Kinney’s beloved series has become a rite of passage for young readers, and this latest installment–centered around Greg Heffley’s attempt to throw himself the ultimate birthday bash–is already generating buzz. It’s funny, relatable, and perfectly timed for a generation that’s grown up with Greg’s awkward, hilarious adventures.

    Just a few weeks later, on November 11, Dog Man: Big Jim Believes arrives. Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series has redefined what it means to be a children’s book phenomenon. With its blend of humor, heart, and comic-style storytelling, Dog Man has helped countless kids fall in love with reading. This new title promises to be no different, offering a story about belief, friendship, and finding strength within.

    These books aren’t just for kids–they’re cultural touchstones. They bring generations together. Parents read them with their children. Teachers use them to spark classroom discussions. Librarians build displays around them. And kids? They devour them and talk about them with the kind of passion usually reserved for blockbuster movies or viral games.

    And yes, there’s a business side to books. Pricing, distribution, marketing strategies–they all matter. Behind every book on a shelf is a network of people working to make that moment possible. Publishers, authors, illustrators, binders, warehouse teams, sales reps, marketers, and more. It’s easy to forget that when you’re holding a finished book, but every title is the result of countless decisions, collaborations, and passions.

    In a world dominated by screens, short-form content, and constant notifications, books offer something different. They ask us to slow down. To focus. To imagine. To empathize. And that’s more important than ever.

    Literacy isn’t just about reading words on a page–it’s about understanding the world. It’s about critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and the ability to engage with complex ideas. Books help build those skills. They give kids the tools to navigate life, not just school.

    Because in a world that’s constantly changing, books remain one of our most powerful tools for understanding it–and each other. The world needs stories. And stories need us.

    Britten Follett
    Latest posts by Britten Follett (see all)

    Source link

  • WVU cracks down on dangerous idea: free books

    WVU cracks down on dangerous idea: free books

    Passing out copies of a book on a college campus should not prompt a formal investigation. But that’s exactly what happened to freshman Eliyahu Itkowitz at West Virginia University. His experience illustrates how easily students and staff can weaponize a university’s investigative process to silence views they dislike. 

    In December 2024, Itkowitz was handing out copies on campus of Alan Dershowitz’s book, “The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies: And How to Refute Them with Truth.” But after he gave one to a Muslim dining hall employee, she reported him to campus police and the university’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. His crime? Giving her an “anti-Muslim book.” The employee also requested that Itkowitz be banned from the dining hall. (The employee’s request to ban Itkowitz was not granted, probably because handing out books is not misconduct.) 

    The employee said she recognized Itkowitz from the Muslim Student Association’s social media posts in October, warning students to stay away from Itkowitz after he expressed disagreement with the anti-Israel slogans MSA members had painted on protest signs.

    The next time Itkowitz visited the dining hall, that employee falsely claimed to her manager that Itkowitz had been banned for anti-Muslim speech. The employee then called campus police while her manager told Itkowitz he had to leave. Itkowitz objected and started recording the encounter, before eventually sitting down to eat with his friends. 

    In her reports to police and DDEI, the employee claimed that Itkowitz engaged in “racially inappropriate” speech, calling her “anti-Jewish” and telling her to “do [her] fucking job.” Itkowitz denies making any of these comments, none of the witnesses present heard any of the alleged comments or saw Itkowitz interact with the employee at all, and the video footage of the encounter does not support the employee’s claims. 

    The employee added that he had also called her a “terrorist” months earlier. He denies this too.

    Nevertheless, WVU issued a no-contact order prohibiting any interaction between the two and launched an investigation into Itkowitz for religious discrimination and harassment. After completing that investigation, WVU eventually dropped the case against Itkowitz last month. 

    But the investigation never should have happened in the first place. 

    Even if the university found that every single one of the dining hall employee’s allegations were 100% true — and there are good reasons to doubt her account of events — the alleged conduct falls well short of the legal standard for discriminatory harassment. Quite simply, even if the allegations are true, the conduct would nevertheless be protected by the First Amendment.   

    As we explained in a letter to WVU sent today, even if a school changes course later, launching an investigation and slapping students with a no-contact order based on protected expression is guaranteed to chill speech by making students think twice before speaking up in the future. Instead, universities that receive such complaints should first conduct internal reviews, and if they confirm the allegations concern wholly protected expression, close the matter without notifying the speaker — thereby avoiding a chilling effect — while offering support to the complainant. 

    Otherwise, WVU is allowing students and staff with ideological disagreements to use its complaint process as a cudgel to silence opponents. Itkowitz’s case was not the first. In fall 2023, WVU launched a 10-month investigation into a student for counterprotesting at pro-Palestinian demonstrations based on a complaint from the Muslim Students Association that similarly alleged wholly protected speech. 

    Universities must not allow weaponization of DEI investigations to inhibit the free exchange of ideas.

    A university campus that investigates students every time someone is offended cannot function as a home for rational dialogue and debate. Administrators must accept that students will sometimes be offended when confronted with views different from their own. At the very least, handing out books on a university campus should never be cause for investigation. 

    Source link

  • The silencing of voices through the banning of books

    The silencing of voices through the banning of books

    When I was in fifth grade in northern Kentucky, I walked into my school library, excited to check out my favorite book — Drama by Raina Telgemeier — only to find it missing. My librarian told me it had been removed because someone had complained it wasn’t appropriate for our age group.

    The shelves looked emptier without it and I remember the sting of frustration in my chest as I asked question after question, my voice growing unsteady. That book was my only access to a world I love and now it was gone. 

    At the time, I didn’t understand why it had disappeared. Now, I realize that moment was part of a much larger battle playing out across the country.

    A surge in book bans across the U.S. is forcing educators and librarians into a heated debate over censorship and intellectual freedom, as restrictions on books about race, gender and LGBTQ+ topics increase.

    “Books don’t hurt people. People hurt people,” said Joyce McIntosh, assistant program director for the Freedom to Read Foundation.

    Bans across the nation

    As book bans and censorship debates arise across the country, independent K-12 schools, like the Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware where I go to school, must balance open access to information with concerns over age-appropriate content — a challenge that mirrors broader societal tensions over education and free expression.

    Over the past few years, book challenges have significantly increased, with reports from the American Library Association showing a record-breaking number of book bans in 2023, documenting 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources.

    While these debates are heating up in the U.S., similar efforts to restrict access to information are occurring across the globe, from government crackdowns in China to classroom censorship in Brazil. McIntosh said these bans disproportionately target books focused on BIPOC and LGBTQ communities, limiting students’ access to diverse perspectives. 

    “Bans often target books focused on [black, indigenous and people of color]  and LGBTQ communities, preventing students from seeing themselves represented,” McIntosh said. 

    Groups advocating for more restrictions counter that certain topics seen in school books promote inappropriate themes or political agendas. On the other hand, organizations like the Freedom to Read Foundation work to educate library workers and community members about the importance of intellectual freedom. 

    Local schools navigate the debate

    For educators, the tension between intellectual freedom and parental concerns seems like a tightrope act. While public schools in the United States must follow government and state regulations, independent schools have more flexibility in curating their libraries and media centers. That flexibility comes with its own challenges and doesn’t provide much leeway.

    Instead, it forces school administrations to set their own guidelines, often navigating difficult conversations with parents, teachers, and students to figure out what’s best for their school environment. 

    Ensign Simmons, the director of innovation and technology and library coordinator at the Tatnall School, emphasized the school’s approach to book selection. While the library strives to provide students with diverse perspectives in education, it also considers community concerns as well as the age-appropriateness of the content, Simmons said. 

    Simmons said that while Tatnall is not a public institution, the school still has a responsibility to prepare students to think critically and be open-minded when they enter the world.

    Tatnall hasn’t faced formal book bans, but the school remains aware of the growing national trends. Instead of outright censorship, Simmons said that the school encourages dialogue between students, parents and educators. Maintaining this balance means that while some books may contain more mature content, the overall goal is to promote discussion among students of different perspectives rather than restrictions.

     “Even if you disagree with something, that doesn’t mean we should take it off the shelves,” Simmons said. “We should keep them out there because that does spark a conversation and that conversation is what’s important at the end of the day.”

    The role of parents play

    While anti-ban activists argue that restricting and banning books violates an individual’s access to intellectual freedom, pro-ban supporters see it as a step taken that is necessary to protect children and youth from inappropriate and controversial material.

    Moms for Liberty, a conservative advocacy group, has led efforts to remove books like The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison from certain school districts and libraries, arguing that educators should not have the final say in what the students read.  

    McIntosh said that many schools already have policies allowing parents to opt their child out of specific reading materials and select an alternative that aligns with the curriculum. However, when one parent’s choice limits access for all students, it crosses into censorship, she said. Parents have the right to choose that for their child, however, it starts becoming more like censorship when they decide they don’t want anyone reading the book, making a decision for others based on their own beliefs. 

    Censorship is a global issue, not confined to the United States. In China, writers who challenge the government’s narrative have been imprisoned. In Tanzania, the government banned children’s books on sex education, citing violations of cultural norms, while in Brazil, attempts have been made to remove books addressing race and gender from classrooms. This is similar to the problem in the United States.

    These efforts to restrict access to information emphasize the broader, international pattern of controlling stories, especially those of marginalized communities. Whether driven by political power, cultural conservatism or fear of open dialogue, these global examples underscore the dangers of erasing perspectives that are vital for understanding diverse human experiences, just as we are witnessing in the U.S.

    What the future holds

    As the debate over book bans intensifies, many wonder what the future for school libraries will look like. In the future, instead of banning books outright, restrictions could shift toward regulation of digital content, as our world’s use of technology grows and as more controversial material becomes accessible online.

    Schools, like Tatnall, might continue to shift and shape their policies, cultivating discussions among the youth rather than enforcing strict bans and censoring intellectual content.

    Years ago, I didn’t understand why my favorite book was taken away. Now, I see that removing a single book is never just about a book — it’s about whose voices get heard and whose stories remain untold. 

    “One of the most dangerous aspects of book bans is that they often target marginalized voices,” McIntosh said. “When we remove these stories, we’re not just censoring books. We’re erasing experiences and perspectives that are crucial for understanding the world around us.”

    The ongoing debate over book bans isn’t only about stories; it’s about who gets to decide what topics are worth exploring. And that struggle isn’t limited to the United States. Across continents, governments and school systems are making similar decisions about which perspectives are allowed to exist and which are erased.

    As long as books continue to disappear from shelves, that debate will continue shaping free expression and education for years to come.

    Questions to consider:

    • Why would some groups want to ban whole classrooms from access to particular books?

    • Why are books about people of color or are about themes of gender identity often the target of bans?

    • Do you think some books should be kept from children? Which ones and why?

     

    Source link

  • Colleges, Students Prefer Inclusive Access Models for Books

    Colleges, Students Prefer Inclusive Access Models for Books

    College affordability is one of the chief concerns of students, families, taxpayers and lawmakers in the U.S., and it extends beyond tuition prices.

    Costly course materials can impede student access and success in the classroom. Over half of college students say the high price of course materials has pushed them to enroll in fewer classes or opt out of a specific course, according to a 2023 survey.

    A new report from Tyton Partners, published today, finds that affordable-access programs that provide necessary materials can save students money and improve their outcomes. The report pulls data from surveys of students, administrators and faculty, as well as market research on the topic.

    The background: Affordable-access programs, also called inclusive-access programs, bill students directly for their textbooks as part of their tuition and fees. Through negotiations among publishers, institutions and campus bookstores, students pay a below-market rate for their course materials, which are often digital.

    This model ensures all students start the term with access to the required textbooks and course materials, allowing them to apply financial aid to textbook costs, which removes out-of-pocket expenses at the start of the term. A 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found that over half of respondents have avoided buying or renting a book for class due to costs.

    The first federal regulations for affordable-access programs were set in 2015 to help cap course material costs and spur utilization of inclusive access on campuses. In 2024, the Biden administration sought to redefine inclusive access by making models opt-in to provide students with greater autonomy, but the plan was ultimately paused. Most colleges have an opt-out model of affordable-access programs, requiring students to elect to be removed, according to Tyton’s report.

    Critics of affordable-access programs argue that an across-the-board rate eliminates students’ ability to employ their own cost-saving methods, such as buying books secondhand or using open educational resources. Students often lose access to digital resources at the end of the term, limiting their ability to reuse or reference them.

    Findings from Tyton Partners’ research point to the value of day-one course materials for student success, which can be provided through opt-out inclusive-access models.

    The report: Affordable-access programs are tied to lower costs for participating students, according to the report. The average digital list price for course materials per class was $91, but the average price for course materials for students in an inclusive-access program was $58 per class. (A 2023 survey found the average student spent about $285 on course materials in the 2022–23 academic year, or roughly $33 per item.)

    Opt-out affordable-access models have also placed downward pricing pressure on the market; the compound annual growth rate of course materials declined from 6.1 percent to 0.3 percent since the 2015 ED regulations.

    A student survey by Tyton found that 61 percent of respondents favor affordable-access models compared to buying (13 percent), renting (11 percent) or borrowing (10 percent) course materials.

    Another Angle

    The Tyton Partners report identifies opt-out affordable access as one intervention that can ensure all students have access to course materials on day one, which is tied to better student outcomes.

    Open educational resources, which are not mentioned in the report, are another method of ensuring students have access to digital course materials at the start of the term at no additional cost to the student.

    Among students participating in inclusive access, 84 percent said they felt satisfied or neutral about their user experience, according to a survey by the National Association of College Stores. Students who had a positive view of inclusive access cited the convenience of not shopping for materials (80 percent), day-one access (78 percent) and knowing all their course materials are correct (71 percent) as the top benefits.

    Among colleges that do offer inclusive access, those with opt-out models see higher student participation than those with opt-in models (96 percent versus 36 percent, respectively). Administrators report that some students, especially first-year and first-generation students, are less likely to engage in opt-in models and may then struggle because they lack the required materials, which researchers argue enables gaps to persist in student outcomes.

    Researchers compared two community colleges and found that students who participated in an opt-out equitable-access program had higher course completion and lower withdrawal rates, compared to their peers who opted in. Learners from underrepresented minority backgrounds, including Black and multiracial students, saw greater gains as well.

    While a majority of students indicated a preference for inclusive-access models, it’s still paramount that institutions help students fully understand the benefits of participation and offer them seamless opportunities to opt out, according to Tyton’s report.

    After adopting inclusive access, institutions were likely to increase offerings and expand the number of courses within the model. A majority of surveyed faculty members (75 percent) said their institution should maintain or increase affordable-access model usage.

    Report authors noted a higher administrative burden in an opt-in model, because costs are applied and resources given to each individual student who opts in, rather than simply removing students who opt out. “Since no technology currently automates the opt-in process, most institutions would need to expand their academic affairs, faculty affairs and information technology teams to handle the increased workload under opt-in models,” according to the report.

    Get more content like this directly to your inbox. Subscribe here.

    Source link

  • 400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library

    400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library

    The U.S. Naval Academy has culled 400 books deemed to promote to diversity, equity and/or inclusion from its library at the insistence of the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press.

    Last week, the Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Md., identified 900 potential books to review in response to orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to remove books containing DEI-related content, The New York Times reported. That list included The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., Einstein on Race and Racism, and a biography of Jackie Robinson. A list of the books that were ultimately removed has not been released.

    The nation’s five military academies were also told in February to eliminate admissions “quotas” related to sex, ethnicity or race after President Trump signed an executive order to remove “any preference based on race or sex” from the military. Both the Naval and Air Force Academies have also completed curriculum reviews to remove materials that allegedly promote DEI, and a West Point official also told the AP that it was prepared to review both curriculum and library materials if directed to do so by the Army.

    Source link

  • CASEL Becomes New Home for Engaging Schools Resources

    CASEL Becomes New Home for Engaging Schools Resources

    The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recently announced that it has become the new steward of Engaging Schools’ extensive body of educational resources. With Engaging Schools set to close in early 2025 after more than four decades of impact, CASEL will ensure the organization’s valuable tools, books, and frameworks remain available to educators worldwide.

    As part of this transition, CASEL is making these resources freely accessible to the public. Over time, CASEL will integrate elements of Engaging Schools’ work into several areas including the free Guide for Schoolwide SEL to further advance high-quality, evidence-based SEL implementation in schools and districts.

    “For more than 40 years, Engaging Schools has helped educators create safe and supportive learning environments where students thrive,” said Aaliyah A. Samuel, president and CEO of CASEL. “We are honored to carry forward their legacy by making these resources widely available and embedding them into our work to create school communities that prioritize academic, social, and emotional development.”

    Engaging Schools has long been recognized for its contributions to fostering inclusive school climates, strengthening restorative and equitable  discipline, and advancing engaging  teaching practices. 

    “We take immense pride in the lasting impact of Engaging Schools’ work,” said Larry Dieringer, Executive Director of Engaging Schools. “Though our organization’s chapter is closing, we are deeply grateful to CASEL for ensuring our resources continue to benefit educators and students for years to come.”

    For more than 30 years, CASEL has been a trusted leader in advancing SEL through research, practice, and policy. By integrating Engaging Schools’ resources into its offerings, CASEL reaffirms its commitment to supporting educators with the tools they need to create engaging, inclusive, and academically rich learning environments.

    To access Engaging Schools’ resources now available through CASEL, visit casel.org/engagingschools.

    Kevin Hogan
    Latest posts by Kevin Hogan (see all)

    Source link