Book Bans in State Prisons

In June 2022 news broke that the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) was preventing foreign-language dictionaries from being sent to people in state prisons. After further investigation through Freedom of Information Act requests, it was revealed that MDOC had also banned other foreign-language books and educational materials. In September 2022 the ACLU of Michigan sent a letter to MDOC explaining the legal and constitutional concerns with depriving people in state prisons of foreign-language publications and other educational materials. In August 2023 MDOC changed its policy to allow people in state prisons to receive foreign-language dictionaries, phrasebooks, and other learning materials, and established a committee to review MDOC’s full list of banned publications and recommend which publications should be removed from the list. (ACLU Attorneys Ramis Wadood, Phil Mayor, and Dan Korobkin; co-counsel Mira Edmonds of U-M Law School.)