Moms for Liberty responds after being accused of getting 'Girls Who Code' books banned: 'Completely false'

Moms for Liberty accused an author of making a "false allegation" that they had helped an effort to get books from the "Girls Who Code" series banned from Pennsylvania public school libraries.

Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani sounded off this week after four titles from her non-profit's series were added to PEN America's Index of School Book Bans, a list of restricted literature around the country. She is quoted in a Business Insider article suggesting that Moms for Liberty, a parental rights advocacy group, was partly responsible, yet was more direct on Twitter.  

"I woke up this morning to a news alert that our @GirlsWhoCode middle-grade book series was banned by some school districts as part of the Mom for Liberty effort to ban books," Saujani wrote. "To be honest, I am so angry I cannot breathe."  

"This is about controlling women and it starts with controlling our girls and what info they have access to," Saujani told the Insider about the reported book banning.

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Moms for Liberty co-Founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice denied the allegations in a press release.

"The allegations that Moms for Liberty has worked to ban ‘Girls Who Code’ are completely false," they said. "Furthermore, the Central York school district has confirmed the book is currently sitting on library shelves." 

Pennsylvania's Central York School District, which was accused of banning the "Girls Who Code" likewise called the coverage "categorically false." The district provided Fox News Digital with the following timeline.

"On Sunday, September 25, a national news outlet published a story stating Central York School District banned the Girls Who Code series. Initially, the report did not provide timelines of this alleged ban (sic), confusing readers. This story has been updated twice with clarifying details from the Central York School District. 

"The Girls Who Code series was included in a Diversity Resource List, along with approximately 200 other resources, that was removed from the Central York School District in November 2020. However, with this removal, the disclaimer was the District would continue to use materials and resources previously in place. The Girls Who Code series remained in circulation from November 2020 to September 2021, when the Diversity Resource List was reinstated by the Central York School District Board of Directors. This book series has not been banned within our district, and they remain available in our libraries."

Both the Business Insider and Newsweek pieces on the matter now include editor's notes to indicate similar additional comments from the school district.

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Moms for Liberty also took a swing at the media in its news release on the dustup.

"Where are we in this country when the media can publish an article without even fact-checking with the district and quote an author who lies and villainizes concerned parents to sell more copies of her books?" Descovich and Justice asked. "Moms for Liberty will continue to fight for fundamental parental rights because curating age-appropriate content for a school library is not banning books, it is empowering parents to be involved in their children's education. " 

"Looking at you @Newsweek," the group added on Twitter.

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Saujani pushed back both on the school district and Moms for Liberty in a statement to Fox News Digital, accusing the former of trying to "rewrite history" and the latter of "leading efforts to ban books representing diverse perspectives." 

"The Girls Who Code book series was banned by the Central York School District – and it’s ironic and alarming that the district is attempting to rewrite the history of what happened there in 2020-2021," Saujani said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Hundreds of books, including ours, were assembled by educators on a list of diversity resources intended to help the community grapple with the racial and social turmoil following the murder of George Floyd. The school district then voted to ban the resources on that list from classrooms. In August 2021, the same list was distributed via email (under the subject line ‘Banned Resources’) to teachers with explicit instructions not to use the materials listed. Thanks to the efforts of students, teachers, and parents in the community who organized and fought back, the ban has been defeated, for now." 

"All across the country, groups like Moms for Liberty are leading efforts to ban books representing diverse perspectives (sic), driving an extremist far-right agenda to control and oppress girls, women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone that does not maintain the white supremacist patriarchal status quo," Saujani continued. "Their bigotry and bullying is a danger to our children and our communities -- and plenty of moms agree with us. Marshall Plan for Moms is building a movement to stop relentless attacks from these "parents rights" groups on our children, families, and communities."

Controversies over student reading materials appeared to be on the rise in recent years as parents became more involved in their children's education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many parents have blasted lessons relating to race and gender and other progressive curricula.

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Several states have found themselves caught up in debates over book banning. Efforts to ban books in the U.S. are increasing in 2022, according to a new report from the American Library Association. In 2021, there were 729 total attempts to censor library resources, which set a record number in ALA’s more than 20-year history of compiling this data.