Washington Post Tweets That Trying To Ban ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Is ‘Protecting Students’

When there's a debate over whether a book ban is appropriate, there's a very clear distinction for most major media outlets: whether it's the left or right that finds a book objectionable.

And the Washington Post recently confirmed that the usual double standards unsurprisingly continue to apply.

Individuals like Chaya Raichik, who runs the Libs of Tik Tok X (formerly Twitter) account, have chronicled how local administrators have injected inappropriate material into schools. Books that encourage or depict explicit sexual conduct or provide age inappropriate advice to children are often available or even promoted.

Attempting to ensure that children are protected from inappropriate content, as Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature did recently, leads to endless wailing and gnashing of teeth from major media outlets and progressive commentators. The Guardian described how Florida's book bans are "fascist."

The Daily Beast used the same terminology, chronicling a brave Navy vet decrying DeSantis' "fascism."

But when extremely far left teachers try to get classic literature banned, it's all done to "protect students." At least, according to a post from the Washington Post X account.

"Four progressive teachers in Washington's Mukilteo School District wanted to protect students from a book they saw as outdated and harmful. The blowback was fierce," the post reads.

What was the book that's "outdated and harmful?" Why, "To Kill a Mockingbird," of course.

According to the story, students told their teacher "how it hurt" to read it. One of the classics of American literature. So sure enough, the progressive sprang into action.

The building of the Washington Post newspaper headquarter is seen on K Street in Washington DC on May 16, 2019. (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP) (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images)

My How The Tables Turn On Book Bans

After being told by students that "To Kill a Mockingbird" didn't represent them or that they found the plot "bad," a group of four liberal teachers launched a "years-long quest to prohibit any teacher in the largely liberal" school district from assigning it, according to the Post.

They even submitted a formal "book challenge" in 2021, which the Post says was "the first ever to come from teachers."

“To Kill A Mockingbird centers on whiteness,” they wrote in their challenge, saying it “presents a barrier to understanding and celebrating an authentic Black point of view in Civil Rights era literature and should be removed.”

Sure sounds like exactly the type of book ban effort that's called "fascist" when it involves showing porn to kids.

The Post's story even takes a fairly even-handed approach to the topic, laying out what happened as teachers claimed to be concerned about the "racial trauma" that "students of African Ancestry" were dealing with. But those same efforts to "protect" students when it comes to inappropriate content in books championed by the far left are demonized when parents object.

Instead of the charitable "protect students" from "outdated and harmful" books framing from the post on X, parents are "anti-LGBTQ+" aggressors who should be investigated by the FBI.

It's not surprising that the standards are so different when progressives are involved. It's just surprising they didn't blame "To Kill a Mockingbird" on Ron DeSantis too.