Scholastic is the world’s largest publisher of educational materials, including children’s books. It enjoyed a good reputation. Then it betrayed its mission. It asked an author to cut references to racism from her book before publication.

The author is Maggie Tokuda-Hall (no relation). Her children’s book is Love in the Library. Here is how NPR reported on Saturday on Scholastic’s ill-fated attempt to whitewash it:

Scholastic had crossed out a key section that references ‘the deeply American tradition of racism” to describe the tale’s real-life historical backdrop — a time when the U.S. government forcibly relocated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans to dozens of internment sites from 1942-1945.

Scholastic cit[ed] a ‘politically sensitive’ moment for its market and a worry that the section ‘goes beyond what some teachers are willing to cover with the kids in their elementary classrooms.’

Republicans are waging a crusade to rewrite American history. Their version portrays Blacks as happy plantation workers or inner-city thugs. And Scholastic decided that joining their crusade would be good for business. Historical facts, literary integrity, and intellectual honesty no longer matter.

Scholastic forced to apologize

Tokuda-Hall responded to Scholastic’s suggested cut with a “hard no.” That is not surprising.

What is surprising is that Scholastic would even suggest such a cut. Because you’d think it would find whitewashing books too offensive.

Then again, Scholastic only wanted to do to Tokuda-Hall what Puffin is doing to Roald Dahl. The latter is pandering to “sensitive” people by cutting “offensive language” from his books. Puffin’s intent might be more benign. But it is equally fascistic.

Now Tokuda-Hall is waging a crusade of her own. She’s calling out publishers for doing the bidding of fascists masquerading as conservatives. The Washington Post’s famous slogan comes to mind: Democracy dies in the darkness. So here’s to her for shining a klieg light on this racist incident.

Sure enough, it only took 48 hours after Tokuda-Hall outed Scholastic for the publisher to apologize. It admitted this suggested cut betrayed its values.

Censoring African American studies

Except that Scholastic’s apology rings hollow. After all, this comes on the heels of the College Board similarly betraying its values. It conspired with Gov. Ron DeSantis to cut racism from AP African American Studies.

DeSantis wants Florida schools to teach only a whitewashed version of US history. That means no teaching about the cruelty of slavery or the unfairness of Jim Crow. And he’s propagating false claims about critical race theory to justify this whitewashing.

But the College Board obliged. I vented outrage. Especially because DeSantis is turning suburban moms into Jan 6-style insurrectionists. Mind you, none of them have any problem with their kids reading about wizards and wizardry.

The College Board and Scholastic as political pawns

This outrage shows that the problem is not dystopian fascists like DeSantis. It’s their willing accomplices like the College Board and Scholastic. The backlash forced Scholastic to apologize. But that doesn’t cut it.

I submit that colleges and universities should stop using Scholastic’s educational material. And I reiterate my call for them to stop considering student applications from Florida.