A Michelle Obama biography was among the hundreds of titles that was targeted in a Texas book-banning effort.
According to a formal request obtained by NBC News, a parent from Katy, Texas, asked school officials to remove Michelle Obama: Political Icon public school libraries because of its “unfair” depiction Donald Trump. The filing claimed the biography, written by Heather Schwartz, painted the former president as a “bully” and gave the impression that “if you sound like a white girl you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“It rose to the top of some of the headlines, I think, because it’s sort of outrageous,” Schwartz told theDaily Gazette about the attempted ban. “Because it’s not a controversial topic at all. It’s a nonfiction book about a real person, based on facts.”
Michelle Obama: Political Icon was published in 2020 as part of series dubbed Boss Lady Bios. The book reportedly explores various chapters of the former first lady’s life—from her childhood in Chicago’s South Side to her days at Princeton and Harvard to landing a career in law.
“There’s really not much you can object to in a book like this — and then somebody found something to object to,” Schwartz said. “It’s not about President Trump, who figures in very little, and it’s not at all anti-white. It happens to be about a Black public figure who is very influential — she’s probably an inspirational person to Black young people in particular.”
A spokesperson for the Katy Independent School District told Insider that the district reviewed the request to remove the Obama biography, and officials ultimately rejected it.
Other books that Texas parents tried to ban included Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.
