New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed a bill to prevent book bans as Republican lawmakers in many other states are working to ban a record number of books from school library shelves — most of them dealing with gender identity, sexual orientation and racial justice. At a signing ceremony this week, Governor Murphy was introduced by Martha Hickson, a retired high school librarian from Annandale, New Jersey, who endured verbal abuse from some parents who objected to LGBTQ-themed books in the school library.

Martha Hickson: “According to School Library Journal, nearly half of school librarians reported they had quietly removed books themselves to avoid being the target of a challenge. And those are just the librarians who admitted it. I suspect the number is actually much higher. And I know teachers who will no longer include controversial topics or titles in their classrooms for fear of being targeted, too. When this self-censorship happens, it’s the students who suffer. They lose the voices and stories that explore the real world beyond their own front door. Our own fear censors the material so book banners don’t have to.”