Book banning and contractual expectations of white cisheteropatriarchy: a praxis for epistemic justice in K–12 schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the United States, schools are expected to navigate the political climate of anti–critical race theory and anti-LGBTQ + discrimination, where white identity politics herald white knowledge as the invisible standard against which racial, gender, and sexuality differences are constructed. State policies that facilitate the removal of diverse books in schools and libraries – compounded by nationally driven and locally expressed efforts to further expand such bans, whether successful or not – reintroduce students to stratified curricular expectations. In this context, we interrogate the relationship between white cisheteropatriarchal curricular expectations and the racial contract and the role of GLSEN’s Rainbow Library in confronting the perpetuation of testimonial, hermeneutic, and agential injustices. We conclude with a reflection on possible pathways for terminating white cisheteropatriarchy in further pursuing epistemic justice at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality.