I love my home state of Pennsylvania and along with many other residents, I do not want it to be remembered as an early center of book censorship. Rather, it should become the state that proves freedom-to-read protections can pass anywhere.

As a debut author of my poetry book, Once Upon a Midnight Scroll, this is a topic that hits close to home.  My poetry touches on themes of politics, feminism, and the lived experience as a woman, which (unfortunately) are topics that often land books on restricted literature lists. 

While many people associate book bans with explicit content that parents might not want their children reading, more and more book bans are censored for ideas that challenges the status quo and offer dissenting perspectives from societal norms. In 2025, 92% of all book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, and decision makers, while less than 3% originated from individual parents.  

Currently, my book is at no risk of being banned, but Pennsylvania has already seen how quickly access to books can disappear. In a nine-month 2021–22 national snapshot, Pennsylvania recorded the country's second highest number of school book-ban instances. In 2023, the state's own Right to Read Act memo cited 56 attempts to ban 302 unique titles. The vast majority of those books were written by or about LGBTQIA+ people or Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. 

Senate Bill 1103—the Pennsylvania Right to Read Act—would require the State Librarian and local libraries receiving state aid to adopt the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights and a written policy prohibiting book bans. Libraries that refuse would lose state funding. The bill also addresses the removal of instructional and voluntary-reading materials in public schools.

But SB 1103 has been sitting in the Senate Education Committee since December 4, 2025. It has received no committee meeting and no vote. Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver chairs that committee, which means she can give the bill a public path forward. The Senate returns to session on September 28, 2026.

Pennsylvania is exactly where this victory would matter nationally. The state backed a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 and a Republican candidate in 2024. Passing a strong freedom-to-read law here would show that protecting library access is not a "blue-state" preference. It is a constitutional and community value capable of crossing party lines.

We demand that Senator Culver:

- Publicly announce a hearing and voting date for SB 1103 by August 26, 2026.
- Hold that hearing and committee vote no later than September 30, 2026, immediately after the Senate reconvenes.
- Protect the bill's core safeguards against removals based on partisan or ideological disapproval.
- If the bill advances, publicly urge Senate leadership to schedule a full floor vote before the current legislative session ends.

Parents should make reading decisions for their own children. No individual, political group, or government official should decide which lawful ideas every Pennsylvania family is allowed to encounter. Differing perspectives are GOOD for the American public, and we should be able to rightfully and easily access them. Artists should not fear their work being censored for simply offering their lived experience. 

Sign and share this petition. Pennsylvania can remain an example of how book bans spread, OR it can become the state that proves the freedom to read can win anywhere. Senator Culver, schedule the vote.