Jaclyn Blute

My name is Jaclyn Blute, and I'm a New Hampshire resident, a writer, and someone who has spent years working in content, literacy, and education-adjacent spaces. I'm writing because I'm opposed to SB434, and I want to be direct about why. This is the third year in a row that New Hampshire lawmakers have advanced a school censorship bill — and this one goes further than any before it. SB434 doesn't just target library books. It opens the door to challenges against websites, artwork, plays, dances, statues, pamphlets, recordings, and even visiting speakers. The scope of this bill isn't about protecting children. It's about control. The bill requires every district to establish a complaint process for materials deemed "harmful to minors," "age-inappropriate," or "otherwise offensive" — without ever clearly defining any of those terms. That vagueness isn't an oversight. It's the mechanism. When the language is deliberately undefined, enforcement becomes a function of whoever complains the loudest, not whoever has the best interest of students at heart. I care about this because I've spent my career advocating for people-first, inclusive practices — in marketing, in content, and in the communities I'm part of. I write about diversity and representation. And I know from experience what it means to find yourself in a book, in a story, in a classroom — and what it costs when that access is taken away. Nationally, 44% of the most commonly banned books feature people and characters of color, and 29% feature LGBTQ people and characters. That's not a coincidence either. These bills, whatever language they're wrapped in, disproportionately erase the stories of kids who already feel invisible. And we're asking those same kids to sit in classrooms and trust that the adults in charge value them. When books and classroom materials can be removed because a single person finds them "offensive" — with no legal definition at all — we're not protecting kids. We're starving them of the diverse ideas that build strong readers and critical thinkers. New Hampshire has long valued both local decision-making and free expression. SB434 undermines both. School boards already have processes for handling parental concerns. Educators and librarians are professionals who dedicate their lives to serving students. What they don't need is a statewide framework designed to make it faster and easier to strip resources from the students who need them most. I urge you to reject SB434. Our kids deserve open shelves and open minds — not a legislature that makes it easier to silence the stories that might be the only ones that make them feel less alone. Thank you.