Scrutiny of books in schools intensified in Texas last year, as state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, chairman of the House Committee on General Investigating, requested that superintendents catalog nearly 850 titles related to race and sex or that could produce “discomfort” among students.
Separately, some school boards in Texas have moved to remove books from libraries, as books have been challenged and banned in other states as well.
A viral Feb. 1 tweet that garnered at least 16,100 retweets and 65,800 likes by Australian user @AnthCondon said, “Books banned in Texas include 1984, Maus, and The Handmaid’s Tale, but not Mein Kampf. I’m done arguing with people over whether this is fascism.”
PolitiFact Texas reached out to the user for his source but did not hear back. The books the user refers to are:
– “1984” by George Orwell, about a dystopian totalitarian government that censors information, brainwashes citizens, and persecutes them for individualist, critical thinking.
– “Maus” by Art Spiegelman depicts the author asking his father, a Holocaust survivor, about his experiences.
– “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, set in a totalitarian theocratic society where women cannot hold property or jobs. A group of women, called “handmaids,” are forced to produce children for the ruling class of men.
– “Mein Kampf,” Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic political manifesto.
Is this post right about these books being banned in Texas and “Mein Kampf” not banned? Let’s take a look…
Read the full story and see how the claim scored at PolitiFact Texas, and listen to an interview with PolitiFact’s Nusaiba Mizan in the audio player above.
