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A petition announced Monday would help push back against censorship in Michigan libraries and calls for increased legislative support to statewide catalogs.
The Michigan Library Association is behind the effort, which calls on officials to stand up for residents’ First Amendment rights and protect the freedom to read in libraries across the state.
Members of the association said in a news release that the Protect MI Right to Read petition is on track to be delivered to the Michigan Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in October.
“Michigan’s public libraries serve everyone, not just the loudest voices,” Dillon Geshel, interim executive director of the association, said in a statement. “The Petition to Protect MI Right to Read was created to send a clear message to our elected officials that public libraries exist to reflect all of us, and every resident deserves the freedom to see themselves on the shelves.”
The petition asks state lawmakers and Whitmer to publicly affirm their commitment to the freedom to read in libraries, free of censorship, book bans or the sequestration of certain materials. It also asks officials to encourage local governments and library boards to resist censorship, support diverse collections, and champion First Amendment legal precedents protecting them.
Additionally, the petition asks for the appropriation of state funding, increasing allocations to libraries in the pending state budget. That would include annual spending support for the Michigan eLibrary and statewide catalog and other at-risk statewide library programs.
In the state House of Representatives-passed spending plan for the 2025-26 fiscal year, the chamber is proposing the same $16.5 million in funding to school libraries as the current fiscal year. The funding was in line with what Whitmer proposed in her executive recommendations issued earlier this year. The Senate has proposed funding school libraries at $15 million in its version of the school education budget.
“We’re seeing more organized efforts to control what people can read, and it’s happening right here in Michigan,” said Jenny Marr, Michigan Library Association board president and executive director of Capital Area District Libraries, in a statement. “This petition reminds us that libraries are places of curiosity, growth, and empathy, and they’re worth defending.”
In data provided by the association, a new EPIC-MRA poll from June 2025 shows that 79% of voters approve of the work libraries are doing, 75% trust librarians’ discretion on the materials in their collections, and 82% agree that access to materials for young people should be protected.
Another 84% said they support current library policies on age-appropriate shelving.
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