Ayanna Pressley

With books disappearing from school library shelves nationwide, one Massachusetts lawmaker says she’s doing her part to promote inclusive literature for students.

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, heads to Somerville on Tuesday afternoon to reintroduce legislation that she says will promote inclusive literature and ensure an inclusive learning environment.

The Boston Democrat is set to do that during a “community read-in” at All She Wrote Books.

There, she’ll be flanked by authors, fellow readers and residents who will read their favorite books and discuss the fight against book bans, Pressley’s office exclusively told MassLive.

“From bans on our bodies to bans on our books, Trump and Republicans are stopping at nothing to rip away our fundamental freedoms, censor Black, queer and other marginalized authors, and deny us the right to learn and see ourselves reflected in our literature,” Pressley said in a statement.

Already a culture war issue, book bans have risen “exponentially” over the last two years, according to PEN America

The free speech group tallied 6,870 such bans during the 2024-25 school year. That’s down from the 10,046 bans imposed during the 2023-24 school year.

But it’s still a sharp increase from the two years between 2021 and 2023, which saw a little less than 3,000 bans during each school year, NPR reported last year.

The group pointed to what it described as a “disturbing normalization of censorship” in the nation’s public schools, NPR reported, citing the PEN data.

In Massachusetts, 70 different books have been challenged in dozens of school districts across the Commonwealth, Pressley’s office said

The legislation that Pressley’s office introduced Tuesday would:

Ensure primary and secondary schools have a library with a trained librarian;

Require public libraries and school libraries to maintain a diverse collection of books;

Classify discriminatory book bans as violations of federal civil rights laws; and

Direct the Government Accountability Office to report on the effect of book bans on underrepresented communities.

The bill “(confronts) book bans head-on by ensuring libraries nationwide maintain a diverse collection of books and classifying book bans as violations of federal civil rights law,“ Pressley said.

Pressley was joined on the bill by Democratic U.S. Reps. André Carson of Indiana, Yvette Clarke of New York, Dwight Evans and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, Henry C. (“Hank”) Johnson, Jr. of Georgia, Rick Larsen of Washington, Gwen S. Moore of Wisconsin, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mike Quigley of Illinois, Delia C. Ramirez of Illinois, Emily Randall of Washington, Lateefah Simon of California, Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Lauren Underwood of Illinois, and Nydia M. Velazquez of New York.

A variety of advocacy groups and publishers are also backing the legislation, Pressley’s office said.

They range from Authors Against Book Bans, Authors Guild and the Boston Comic Arts Foundation to EveryLibrary, Florida Freedom to Read Project and the Hachette Book Group.

“This fight is about honoring the brilliance of Black and queer authors, educators, students, and librarians—and it’s a fight for education, democracy, and justice," Pressley said.

The legislation is “an essential affirmation of what we all know: book bans disproportionately target already marginalized groups,” the advocacy group American Booksellers for Free Expression said.

Book bans are "an affront to students’ rights. We deserve to make decisions regarding our education, not politicians who seek to undermine our liberty to learn,” Cameron Samuels, the executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), said.