A Texas district used AI to ban a Holocaust classic under a new “anti-DEI” law, raising alarms over the erasure of Jewish history.
In a move that has drawn outrage from Jewish and academic circles, a school district in central Texas has removed “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” a renowned Holocaust-themed novel, citing a new state law restricting so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) content.
The Leander Independent School District, located near Austin, announced that the book’s removal came after an internal review—partially guided by artificial intelligence—to identify materials that could violate Senate Bill 12, a controversial Texas law that forbids DEI-related classroom instruction.
The 1988 novel by Jewish author Jane Yolen, a timeless tale that introduces middle-grade readers to the horrors of the Holocaust through the eyes of a modern American girl transported back to World War II Poland, was flagged as “paused for review.”
Educators say the district’s decision betrays both ignorance and moral cowardice. “Removing books like ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ is a huge mistake,” said Frank Strong, a teacher and co-director of the Texas Freedom to Read Project. “Students need stories like this—it’s how they understand what happens when hate is allowed to flourish.”
Leander ISD is not alone. In the past two years, school districts across Texas, Florida, and beyond have removed classic Jewish and Holocaust literature—among them “Maus,” “Anne Frank’s Diary,” and “The Fixer.” Critics say these bans, carried out under the guise of “protecting children,” are systematically erasing Jewish identity and historical truth from classrooms.
The district’s review rubric reportedly marks books as problematic if they “frame representation as inequity requiring remedies” or “contain sensitive themes elevated to instructional focus.” By that logic, virtually every Holocaust account—focused on persecution, survival, and moral reckoning—could now be targeted.
Ironically, Texas mandates Holocaust education statewide, yet local administrators are now censoring the very literature that fulfills that mandate. Jewish educators warn that such bans undermine Holocaust remembrance, trivialize antisemitism, and open the door to historical distortion.
Even more troubling, this is among the first known cases where AI algorithms have been used to flag Holocaust material for removal—raising fears that automated bias could silence Jewish narratives in classrooms under politically charged pretexts.
“Teachers choose books like ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ because students need books like ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic,’” Strong said. “This is more than censorship—it’s an assault on memory.”
