President Biden has apparently removed the mention of Dr. Seuss from “Read Across America Day” amid scrutiny over the alleged “racial nuances” in whimsical tales for children.
Read Across America Day, founded by the National Educational Association in 1998 as a way to promote children’s reading, is even celebrated on the author’s birthday on March 2.
In his presidential proclamation, Biden noted that “for many Americans, the path to literacy begins with storytelling in their classroom,” reported USA Today.
But, unlike his two predecessors, former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, Biden did not mention Dr. Seuss.
The change comes at a time when Dr. Seuss’ work was controversial after a study that highlighted the lack of diversity among the author’s characters.
“Of the 2,240 human characters (identified), there are forty-five colored characters that represent 2% of the total number of human characters,” according to a 2019 study by Conscious Kid’s Library and the University of California that examined 50 of Dr. Seuss books.
Last week, a school district in Virginia ordered its teachers to avoid “connecting Read Across America Day with Dr. Seuss” because of recent research that “has revealed strong racial overtones” in many of the author’s books.