Book Bans Are Surging

which book paper catches fire and burns. The movie is based on the dystopian novel by Ray Bradberry, depicting a society where books are outlawed and fireman burn every book they find. Mind, it may not be as severe as burning, but there's been a dramatic escalation in the banning of books, and it seems to reflect culture war issues. Book challenges doubled from one According to the American Library Association, the majority of banned books focus on sexual orientation, gender identity, race,

and racism. One Texas school district is getting ready for the start of school by removing forty one books from school library shelves, including gender queer by Maya Kobab, one of the most challenged books of last year. My guest is Deborah calwell Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. Why do you think book bands are on the rise? I think because a number of

events that have come together. One is the apparent success of Glenn young Can in his gubernatorial campaign, leveraging a parents complaint about a school book in Virginia to apparently draw voters and win that election. But I also think that there is an organized effort to attack education more broadly,

and that books have become part of that campaign. We're seeing groups that call themselves parents rights groups, Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn and Education Parents Defending Education, activate local members local chapters to attend school board meetings, library board meetings and demand the removal of books and being very successful.

The reasons for challenging books change over the years. Between two thousand and two thousand nine, the Harry Potter series was frequently challenged because of allegedly promoting witchcraft and wizardry.

What do the challenges now mainly focus on. What we've observed since is the majority of books challenged in schools and libraries that when someone demands that they be removed from the library shelf are books centering the lives and experiences of lgbt q i A persons, And this includes things like picture books that simply depict a family headed by a same sex couple, ranging two young adult materials dealing with coming of age stories, romance, or nonfiction books

dealing with sex education. The other trend that we're observing, and this is tied to the current campaign around critical race theory, or the claim that critical race theory is being taught in K through twelve schools, is a real effort to remove books reflecting the experience of African Americans. Are reflecting a perspective on history by African Americans who challenge some of the traditional narratives about racism and US

history and their experience of slavery. And so what we're seeing is a focus on removing books that challenge the traditional narratives that elevates the lives and the voices of persons who have been traditionally excluded from society. But now I've found a voice. I think we've reached a kind of consensus here in the United States. Books written for adults and intended for adult audiences rarely see challenges. It

never really becomes an issue. The real dispute is about books that are available to young people, and there has been a successful effort by a number of groups who style themselves parents rights groups to make this an issue about challenging their authority to raise their children, when in fact the end results has been to eliminate books that speak to the experiences of others in society who do

not share their moral or political views. Looking at the states, Texas had the most bands, followed by Pennsylvania, Florida, and Oklahoma. Does book banning happen on both sides of the political spectrum because we mostly hear about it on what i'd call the conservative side. Certainly, book challenges do come from persons from all parts of the political spectrum, and we've seen challenges to books that use racial epithets from individuals and parents who believe that no young person should be

exposed to things like the N word. And so I know that there's been a few school districts that have at least eliminated from the curriculum books like Cuckleberry Fin and even to Kill a Mockingbird, or they've moved those books up to the high school level, and they're teaching them at the high school level rather than the middle school levels. And there have been efforts to remove books

that deal with gun violence. So you're absolutely correct that challenges can come from all parts of the political spectrum.

But what we're seeing right now is really this coordinated efforts by a number of conservative advocacy organizations to target the kinds of narratives that challenge their authority that suggests that there's a place for individuals who are not like them in society, essentially silencing the voices of gay, queer, transgender people African Americans who offer more honest perspective on

their experiences of racism here in American society. The only school library case to have been decided by the Supreme Court was forty years ago Island Tree School District. Fepiko

tell us about that case. That was a plurality decision where it was determined that the first school board had to operate in a way that was consistent with the First Amendment and that indeed, students do have First Amendment rights to access books that are provided to them for voluntary reading in the school library, and that the school board could not remove books from the school library simply because they didn't like the ideas, opinions, viewpoint expressed in

those books, And the result was guidance that said that, in fact, there is a First Amendment right to read and access ideas in a public library and a public school library, and that removing books because of their content or viewpoint could very well violate the First Amendment rights of the users who were supposed to be able to

read them. And so we've seen a number of lower court decisions drawing on that authority that, for example, found that putting Harry Potter on a restricted shelf and requiring written parental permission to Accessory Potter in the school library did indeed violate the First Amendment rights the students who are entitled to use the books in that library and

the public library. Realm District courts determined that when a city council authorized on ordinance that allowed any three hundred people to demand that a book be removed from the children's room to a restricted shelf in the adult area, and that was used to target two picture books dealing with families headed by same sex couples. Heather has two mommies,

daddy's roommate um. They found that ordnance essentially violated the First Amendment rights both of the young people who were supposed to be able to browse and read those books, but also the parents who wanted their children to be able to find and read those books in the public library. So the court druck down the ordinance and ordered the

books returned to the children's browsing collection. So there's been this defense of the ability of individuals to make their own choices about the reading and the ability of libraries to provide a variety of information needs across the range of beliefs and politics. On August fifth, a judge rejected Missouri students bid for a preliminary injunction and suit over school library book removals. His opinion question their reliance on

the plurality opinion in the Island Trees case. Do you fear a time when Island Trees will no longer be controlling law because it was just a plurality opinion? Well, you know, I would argue that subsequent cases and other decisions drought the federal court system have upheld the idea that students don't shed the First Amendment right when they enter the schoolhouse gate, to quote another famous case, the

Tinker decision. But also, ultimately, I would have faith that courts would recognize that broad censorship of ideas in public school systems that are supposed to be serving the entire community, based on particular parents or particular advocacy groups objection to those ideas is the kind of government censorship we don't want our schools engaging in. How would you describe the criteria for banning a book? Is it based mainly on obscenity.

It's a framing that we're hearing from these advocacy groups that any book touching on topics dealing with gender identity, sexual orientation, that provide information about changing bodies, human reproduction, sexuality are inherently obscene for minors, which of course is an objection based on particular moral or religious beliefs, and that really should have no place in the decision making about what books are available to young people in schools.

And certainly obscenity is the bottom line as far as determining what is not protected by the First Amendment in those terms, But the Court has made it very clear that that's a very narrow category of materials that has no serious value, no educational value. You know, when library professionals, for an educational professionals select books for school students, they're selecting them because they do have an educational value, and

particularly for voluntary reading in the school library. These books may serve the needs of a particular subset of students and they're not required reading. So the streisand effect is something that does occur when a book is challenged or banned, but it doesn't happen to every book. And ultimately, we have to think about those students, those members of the community who don't have access to credits, who don't have regular access to the internet, who can't travel to alternative bookstores.

Public libraries exist to serve those very people, and school libraries serve students who have no other information resources. So when we ban a book from a school library, when we ban a book from a public library, we're denying those who have less in society the ability to gain the same access to information and ideas that are enjoyed by those with better income. In Virginia, there's a case where a former state congressman is trying to use this o Virginia law to ban the sale of books to miners.

Is this another step because they're attempting to tell places like Barnes and Nobles what they can or can't sell. That's the core here. Um. We have individuals trying to tell us what to think about, what to read about, to recruit elected officials and the governments in their campaign to limit what we can read, what we can think about, even how we can live our own lives, and the

government should not be engaged in that. That's what the First Amendment is for, this effort to reframe the conversation around gender identity and sexual orientation to somehow define it as inappropriate for any minor even the oldest of miners to consider and think about, when in fact, we know that we have many young people um who are parts of families who have gay or transgender members, are who are grappling with these issues themselves, or have friends who

are grappling with these issues themselves. Is something that the

government simply should not be engaged in. The First Amendment has promised us the freedom to believe as we wish, to think what we wish to read, what we want to speak as we wish um, in full freedom of conscience and what we have here is a campaign to take those rights away, um, and particularly in regards to the concepts dealing, you know, with the lives and identities of those who have been traditionally marginalized in our society,

to limit our consideration to something that was probably acceptable in nineteen fifty two but no longer reflects the reality of the society we live in or the people who live in it. It's the antithesis of democracy to tell us what to think and read about, and to argue that our public schools and that our public with libraries should only reflect the views of a vocal minority. Really, um got the very meaning of the First Amendment and its promise of our freedom to read and believe as

we wish. I remember when Senator Ted Cruz read from a book asking now Justice Katangi Brown Jackson about racist babies. The sales of that book went up. Is that what usually happens when there are attempts to ban books. Yes, we do observe that frequently when a book is challenged or banned, there is increased curiosity. People want to find out what's so salacious, what's so wrong with the book, And so sales do go Up One author Andie Thomas, who wrote a book for young adults called They Hate

You Give. She's actually stated on social media that she has come to appreciate book bands because it means but she sells more books. So the strikes and effect is something that does occur when a book is challenged or banned, but it doesn't happen to every book. And ultimately, we have to think about those students, those members of the community who don't have access to credits, who don't have regular access to the Internet, who can't travel to alternative bookstores.

Public libraries exist to serve those very people, and school libraries serve students who have no other information resources. So when we ban a book from a school library, when we ban a book from a public library, we're denying those who have less in society the ability to gain the same access to information and ideas that are enjoyed

by those with better income. Thanks Debora, that's Deborah calwell Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, the former head of the JP Morgan Chase precious metals business and It's Up Gold Trader were convicted in Chicago on charges of fraud spoofing and market manipulation and face decades in prison. It's a victory for the government and its long crackdown on spoofing in the precious metals market,

even though a third defendant, a salesman, was acquitted. Joining me is James Park, a professor at u c l A Law School. His latest book is called The Valuation Treadmill, How securities Fraud Threatens the integrity of public companies. Two of the defendants were convicted, including the man who was once the most powerful figure in the gold market, but one was acquitted. So is this a victory for federal prosecutors in their crackdown. It is a victory in in

my view. The person who was acquitted was not directly involved in the trade, and so he was a salesperson, so he may have had a stronger defense. And so I think the two convictions, though, are very significant, and you know, they send a signal not just with respect to gold market, but also other markets. And it culminates an extensive effort to crack down on this sort of spoofing and manipulative market activity. And it also shows that

prosecutors can bring these cases before a jury. They'll understand it and they're willing to convict. In some cases, the jury was out for eight hours. That seems like a lot for this kind of case, with the amount of evidence that the prosecution put in. It may be it really depends on the context. And you know, it is, you know, a case that involves a lot of different transactions, a lot of different different trading transactions, and you know, the jury may have been trying to make sure it

understood the details of what was being alleged. They certainly were also pass with deciding the fate of three different individuals, and so I would guess that a significant portion of that time might have been spent on um the acquitted individuals case, trying to understand what his role was in the transactions and whether or not be potentially guilty. So the government tried racketeering charges here, which are normally used

in mob cases or gang cases. Prosecutors alleged the precious metals business at JP Morgan was run as a criminal enterprise, but it didn't work. The jury didn't buy that. They acquitted all three on racketeering. It's interesting, you know, we think of rico and racketeering as being um the sort of charges you level against the mafia for very serious types of crimes. Having said that the statue does include fraud,

and fraud can include spoofing and other manipulative activities. But I think what they were trying to say is that they believed that the evidence only supported that the spoof thing was really the responsibility of the individuals involved in those activities as as opposed to the desk as a whole.

That you couldn't say that the desk was acting in a coordinated manner to engage in criminal activity, and that some of this activity may not have been completely obvious to everyone on the desk, that some members of the desk may not have understood that this was a systemic, repeated practice that was going on over many years. And if that's the case, then you can only really blame the individuals who executed the spoofing trades as opposed to the desk as an enterprise. So I think that's a

reasonable conclusion. And at the same time, you can see why the government may have felt it was appropriate to advanced the theory like this. You know, you're going after the head of the death, not a low level employee, and so if you think that the head of the desk is involved in this activity, then surely you know there's an argument that the desk as a whole was involved, as the head of the death was basically engineering this scheme.

The government's investigated this like a mob case. Once they got the data, they started to look for co operators on lower levels and flip them. They arrested one of the mid level traders at an airport in Fort Lauderdale returning from his honeymoon. Is that like a sort of a scare tactic. Definitely, And it's really extraordinary measures that they took in this signals how serious they are taking these manipulative activities. I think it also reflects the difficulty

of establishing manipulation and spoofing. They can always argue that, you know, these are trades that were made for other reasons, They were not men to manipulate the marketplace. And the only way you can really establish manipulative intent is by getting testimony of other individuals who may know and have

evidence about that intent. And so it was very important for the government to bring a criminal case that they have this sort of specific evidence, and the only way you can get that is by getting other employees to flip and to testify, and so they took very aggressive tactics in order to achieve that result. Racketeering charges are also part of the government's case against Bill Wang, whose Articos Capital management collapsed last year and cost banks billions

of dollars? Is this case instructive for the government's case there? It certainly indicates that it may be difficult for the government to win racketeering charges. But every jury is different, and the fact that the government laws on racketeering in this case does not necessarily mean that they will lose in another case. And so you will have to look at each organization on its own facts and look at

the very particular way the organization was run. You know, you could argue with sort of a family fund that maybe the structure of the organization was such so that you might think of it as more like a unified enterprise that a trading desk. Now, on the other hand, you could say, well, it's it's just the same people may have different levels of knowledge of what is potentially illegal activity. So it really is going to depend on the facts. No, Back and Smith will be sentenced next year.

They each face decades in prison, though probably the sentence will be far less. I think it will be far less than decades. I think I've seen some other convictions

of sentences of around a year um. I would suspect maybe it's a bit more in that, but it's hard to say how the judge is going to rule, and they're the judge is going to look at the severity of the conduct and all the circumstances in crafting a sentence, because in these white collar cases you have defendants who don't usually have you know, any records, any criminal records, so that's always one thing in their favor. That's absolutely right.

They may not have criminal records. And you know, the other argument I would make if I was on the defensive side, is that, you know, you look, who are

the victims of the spoofing? And you know, my understanding is that a lot of the investors who lost money on the other side of these trades were other sophisticated investors, high frequency trading funds, and so you might argue, well, there were losses, but these were losses that more um born by barely sophisticated wealthy parties, and so could that mitigate the argument for a strong sentence that could be an argument that the Defense Council will make, is there

still spoofing in the markets? I would guess that there is, you know. One of the problems is defining spoofing can be difficult, and there's a lot of activity that may go up to the brink of spoofing but not actually be spoofing. It really requires placing orders in a market with the intent to cancel them, and you're only placing the order to manipulate the market price in your favor for other transaction, And so what exactly is your intent?

I'm sure that there are other transactions that could potentially fit that definition, but may go right up to the edge, some may go over the edge. Uh, And so you know, with this conviction though, that's a strong signal that you should not engage in this activity. And I would imagine it's going to have a to turn effect and reduced spoofing in many different markets. Did electronic trading make it

easier to spoof? The speed of the trans actions that is enabled by the electronic trading can make it easier to place and cancel orders more quickly. I think that certainly, you know, I think a factor in you know, and does make it easier I think to sort of put in a lot of orders and cancel them very quickly.

If you are, you know, trying to phone in orders, it may be harder to you know, make a subsequent phone called the cancel in order, Whereas if you have just the ability to cancel it with a click of a mouse, then you know, I think that makes it easier for somebody to put in a lot of orders and then quickly cancel them right away. This is the highlight of the federal government's crackdown on spoofing in precious metals. How did they do all? In all? I think they

did very well. They initially got settlement from JP Morgan the institution, and they have also gotten a number of convictions, both through pre bargaining and also through jury trials. I think they're around ten individuals who have pleaded guilty or been convicted. And you know, this is not just a case where they found the misconduct and they penalized JP

Morgan the corporation. There are a lot of commentators scholars who have criticized federal prosecutors for not bringing the individual cases, not bringing cases against individuals for corporate wrongdoing, and this is a nice example where the government did bring cases against individuals and worked very hard to do so, and they've been successful in holding individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing.

It's not just the case that JP Morgan is paying a nine million dollars fine and agreeing to various reforms. You are actually punishing the individuals who have committed wrongdoing, and that is more powerful deterrent then if you are just punishing a corporation that pays a large fine. So I think the government did very well in these cases. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission had multiple investigations, but they closed them after finding no evidence of wrongdoing. Did they

miss something? It's hard to say. I think that, you know, part of the reality of these investigations is that these are hard cases to establish, and you have limited authority, you have limited resources, and those resources might be better off than on other types of wrongdoing. And so, you know,

is it possible they missed something and missed some individuals. Yes, absolutely, But I think that you know, you have to prioritize and essentially winning convictions against the head trader of you know, the one one of the larger banks in this space. And I think that's a good use of your resources. They're going to appeal. Did any Pelt issues stand out to you. I didn't see anything that stood out to

me as a legal issue. You know, they want the convictions on the more straightforward fraud and spoofing claims and manipulation claim as opposed to the racketeering charges, and that might, in effect, the fact that they lost the racketeering charges may make the possibility that they will survive appeal more likely because if they had also want conviction on racketeering, then there could be some legal issues as to whether

this is really racketeering. But you know, because the convictions were on more straightforward charges, it might be that the government's case on appeal will be stronger. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Jim. That's Professor James Park of u c l A Law School. His latest book is The Valuation Treadmill, How securities fraud threatens the integrity of public companies. And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the

latest legal news Honor Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com. Slash podcast Slash Law, and remember to tune in to The Bloomberg Law Show every week night at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg