Rebecca Beaulieu

Another bill to censor educational materials. Allowing people to ban books, videos, and other materials in our schools. Another bill where I'm sure a lot of us are weighing in today, telling our legislators that it is important to not pass this bill. I have no impression that the majority of this committee will actually listen to members of the public, I bet you'll skim by these testimonials and decide you know better than the people you're supposed to serve. Despite that, let me tell you a story in case you'll actually read this. I was fortunate to grow up in a diverse community. My friends came from different cultures, different backgrounds. We all read a lot of books. We were particular fans of the Magic Tree House series and would imagine where we would go if we took the journey alongside the characters. In fifth grade a few of my friends and I decided to write a book. It was clearly inspired by the Magic Tree House. I asked my friend to draw some pictures for the book. And like any fifth grader would do, she drew pictures of people who looked like us! Including a character wearing a hijab, like she wore. It was a story of love and of adventure and princes and princesses. It was silly, but here's the thing: we didn't see many picture books with characters who wore hijabs, and this story reflected our real lives. Under a law like what this bill suggests, someone who doesn't agree with my best friend's religion could make an argument to the school to ban that picture book we created. They could remove it. They could sterilize the classroom of anything that is "different" than the, frankly, cisgender, white, christian view that is reflective of what the bill sponsors would prefer. When you start banning materials from schools, you take away children's opportunities to learn, to grow, and to make their own decisions based on research and independent reading. You sanitize education and take away students' autonomy to make decisions for themselves about what they want to read and write about. I urge the committee to vote no. And to start listening to the people showing up to testify online and in person.