Showing posts with label Wisconsin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wisconsin. Show all posts

Friday, September 27, 2024

These two states are responsible for most of the nation’s school book bans; The 19th, September 24, 2024

Nadra Nittle, The 19th; These two states are responsible for most of the nation’s school book bans

"More than a dozen new state and local policies contributed to the escalation of book bans over the past year. They include Iowa’s SF 496,which took effect last year and has been interpreted to mean that books with sexual or gender themes should be barred. According to PEN America, the law prompted thousands of book bans during the 2023-’24 school year, compared with just 14 bans in the state during the previous school year. 

Florida’s HB 1069, which also took effect last year, mandates that books challenged for “sexual conduct” must be removed as they undergo review. PEN America said the statutory process the law created for book banning and “the state guidance building on it” has led to a spike in statewide book bans. In Florida and Iowa combined, roughly 8,000 book bans were recorded. 

In Wisconsin, the Elkhorn Area School District banned more than 300 books for months on end, PEN America found. The books were removed after a single parent challenged them, but after the district reviewed the titles, they were eventually returned to the shelves, albeit with restrictions such as parental permission to check out certain titles. The organization expects newly enacted laws such as Utah’s HB 29South Carolina’s Regulation 43-170 and Tennessee’s HB 843 to cause more book bans this school year. 

The Utah law requires all schools in the state to ban a book once three school districts have found it objectionable. South Carolina’s regulation bans books with sexual subject matter and gives the state Board of Education the ability to censor works statewide. The Tennessee law requires schools to remove books with gratuitous violence or sexual content...

Censorship is an issue that has drawn attention from the 2024 presidential candidates. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign platform accusesPresident Joe Biden’s administration of “using the public school system to push their perverse sexual, racial and political material on our youth.” In July, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, criticized book bans while speaking to the American Federation of Teachers union in Texas.  

“While you teach students about our nation’s past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation’s true and full history,” she said. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books. Can you imagine?”

Friday, December 31, 2021

Right or wrong?: How La Crosse health-care leaders use ethics to make decisions; NEWS 8000, December 29, 2021

 Jordan Fremstad, NEWS 8000; Right or wrong?: How La Crosse health-care leaders use ethics to make decisions

Gundersen Health System ethicist Tom Harter helps providers make best decisions for critical care


"As hospitals fill up and medical supplies are needed for more people, health-care leaders are forced to make even more tough decisions. How do you decide who’s health matters more?

Most of us strive to do what is right.

“We have to be cognizant of the needs of everybody in the hospital,” said Dr. Wayne Bottner, a hematologist at Gundersen Health System...

Bottner has to decide who receives the available resources. However, he doesn’t do it alone.

“We would never want a physician at the bedside to do that,” said Tom Harter, Gundersen’s bioethics and humanities director. “The psychological stress of that is extremely high.”

Health-care decisions are a wide, murky river that Harter helps bring into focus."