Since PEN America published our initial Banned in the USA: Rising School Book Bans Threaten Free Expression and Students’ First Amendment Rights (April 2022) report, tracking 1,586 book bans during the nine-month period from July 2021 to March 2022, details about 671 additional banned books during that period have come to light. A further 275 more banned books followed from April through June, bringing the total for the 2021-22 school year to 2,532 bans. This book-banning effort is continuing as the 2022–23 school year begins too, with at least 139 additional bans taking effect since July 2022.
In addition to the role played in book banning by local, state, and national groups, efforts to restrict access to books were also advanced in the past year by government officials and enabled by both state-level legislation and district-level policy changes. PEN America estimates that at least 40 percent of the bans counted in the Index of School Book Bans for the 2021–22 school year are connected to political pressure exerted by state officials or elected lawmakers. Some officials for example sent letters specifically inquiring into the availability of certain books in schools, such as occurred in Texas , Wisconsin , and South Carolina .
Since March 2022, we have also seen for the first time educational gag orders passed that implicate restrictions on books, most notably in Florida , as well as a range of other new laws that have put pressure on schools to censor their libraries. The Alpine School District in Utah responded to a new law, HB 374 (“ Sensitive Materials in Schools ”) , by announcing the removal of 52 titles in July, but then opted to keep the books on shelves with some restrictions after national pushback. In August, some school districts in St. Louis, Missouri began to pull books from shelves in response to a law that made it a class A misdemeanor to provide visually explicit sexual material to students. These trends are unfortunately likely to continue, as the chilling effect of these legislative measures spreads.
Altogether, this report paints a deeply concerning picture for access to literature, and diverse literature in particular, in schools in the coming school year. Book banning and educational gag orders are two fronts in an all-out war on education and the open discussion and debate of ideas in America. Students have First Amendment rights to access information and ideas in schools, and these bans and legislative shifts pose clear threats to those rights. This climate is also increasingly undermining the professional discretion of educators and librarians when it comes to matters of public education, and disrupting the potential for effective relationships between parents, teachers and administrators that can actually serve to advance student learning and civic engagement.
Students retain their First Amendment rights in schools. In , a 1969 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Thirteen years later, in , the Court noted the “special characteristics” of the school library, making it “especially appropriate for the recognition of the First Amendment rights of students,” including the right to access information and ideas. What does this mean for districts who receive a request to reconsider a library holding? Legal precedent and expert best practices demand that committee members, and principals, superintendents, and school boards act with the constitutional rights of students in mind, and using established processes, cognizant of the harm in eliminating access for all based on the concerns of any individual or faction. What if a book is obscene? The term “obscenity” holds particular meaning in the legal sense. Obscene material is not protected under the First Amendment, but a finding of obscenity requires satisfaction of a tripartite test, which requires, among other aspects, a holistic consideration of the material at issue. Simply declaring a book “obscene” does not make it so.
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PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel on book bans for PBS NewsHour, March 10, 2022.
In total, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans tracked 2,532 decisions to ban books between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. This includes bans on 1,648 unique banned book titles. The banning of a single book title could mean anywhere from one to hundreds of copies are pulled from libraries or classrooms in a school district, and often, the same title is banned in libraries, classrooms, or both in a district. PEN America does not count these duplicate book bans in its unique title tally, but does acknowledge each separate ban in its overall count.
In some cases, books are removed from shelves pending investigations or reviews, and they may be only temporarily restricted, but their restriction is recorded in the Index as a ban since such restrictions are counter to procedural best practices for book challenges from the American Library Association (ALA) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). Detailed definitions can be found in the first edition of Banned in the USA (April 2022) .
PEN America’s recent findings on each type of ban for the 2021-22 school year are listed below.
333 | 215 | 70 | |
337 | 253 | 40 | |
487 | 481 | 22 | |
1,375 | 984 | 57 |
Beginning in 2021, a range of individuals and groups sought to remove from schools books focused on issues of race or the history of slavery and racism, mirroring a campaign pushed by some legislators to pass educational gag orders —bills restricting discussion of these and other concepts in school classrooms and curricula. Although the campaign to enact educational gag orders initially focused on misapplications of the academic term “critical race theory” to censor discussions of race and racism, over the past year, it morphed to include a heightened focus on LGBTQ+ issues and identities.
Similar trends — and similar rhetoric and reasoning — have been evident in efforts to ban books in schools as they have expanded since 2021, too.
Complaints about diversity and inclusion efforts have accompanied calls to remove books with protagonists of color, and numerous banned books have been targeted for simply featuring LGBTQ+ characters. Nonfiction histories of civil rights movements and biographies of people of color have been swept up in these campaigns. For example, many volumes in the popular Who Was? chapter book series and several biographies of Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor were banned in Central York School District in Pennsylvania . That ban also impacted hundreds of books with protagonists of color, including the Caldecott Honor–winning A Big Mooncake for Little Star . In a similar example, Duval County Public Schools in Florida opted not to distribute sets of the Essential Voices Classroom Libraries collection of books after they had been purchased, flagged for concern over their content. This collection of 176 unique titles has been effectively banned from classrooms while it is being reviewed and reportedly remains in storage. Books in the collection include Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin, and Pink Is For Boys by Robb Perlman, among other titles designed to make classroom libraries more diverse and inclusive.
As the school year progressed, those demanding book removals increasingly turned their attention to books that depict LGBTQ+ individuals or touch on LGBTQ+ identities, as well as books they claimed featured “sexual” content, including titles on sexual and reproductive health and sex education. These trends were already identified in PEN America’s first edition of Banned in the USA (April 2022) report; however, from April to June, there was an acute focus on these topics. This dovetailed with the passage in late March of the “ Parental Rights in Education ” law in Florida—also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law—and the introduction of similar legislation in other states, as well as a range of efforts to censor discussion of LGBTQ+ identities in schools, in Maryland , Missouri , Texas , and beyond. From April to June 2022, a third of all book bans recorded in the Index feature LGBTQ+ identities (92 bans). Over the same short period, nearly two thirds of all banned books in the Index touch on topics related to sexual content, such as teen pregnancy, sexual assault, abortion, sexual health, and puberty (161 bans).
These subject areas have long been the targets of censorship and been controversial from the perspective of age appropriateness, with standards and approaches varying from community to community about what is seen as the right age level for such material, as well as the degree to which these topics should be addressed in school as opposed to in the home. As book banning has resurged, some individuals and groups have sought to reignite debate about sexual content in books, and sexual education in schools generally. While debate on these issues recurs, wholesale bans on books deny young people the opportunity to learn, to get answers to pressing questions, and to obtain crucial information. At the same time, the efforts to target books containing LGBTQ+ characters or themes are frequently drawing on long-standing, denigrating stereotypes that suggest LGBTQ+ content is inherently sexual or pornographic.
PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman on MSNBC for the Mehdi Hasan Show, Nov. 11, 2021.
Many of the books targeted for banning have been labeled “obscene.” These complaints are not supported. The legal test for obscenity requires a holistic evaluation of the material, setting a bar that is highly unlikely to be met by materials selected for inclusion in a school library. Many targeted books have achieved bestseller status or received the highest literary honors. Some contain nothing more “obscene” than the mere suggestion of a same-sex couple in an illustration, as in the board book Everywhere Babies , which was included on one list of books misleadingly labeled “pornographic” along with And Tango Makes Three , a story about two male penguins making a family together, based on the true story of two male penguins who formed a pair bond in New York’s Central Park Zoo. The most frequently banned book, Gender Queer , has been called “obscene and pornographic” by the groups who lobby for its removal, as have dozens of books with LGBTQ+ themes or characters.
In these cases, the term “obscenity” is being stretched in unrecognizable ways because the concept itself is widely accepted as grounds for limiting access to content. But many of the materials now being removed under the guise of obscenity bear no relation to the sexually explicit, deliberately evocative content that the term has historically connoted.
In evaluating these trends, it is critical to remember that only a limited number of children’s and young adult books are published annually that are written by or about either LGBTQ+ people or people of color. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison, has compiled statistics on diversity in children’s literature since 1985. In its 2021 report , the center states that of the 3,420 books received at the institution in 2021, 1,152 titles were “books by and about Black, Indigenous and People of Color” (34 percent). Although the center does not continuously maintain similar statistics on books about LGBTQ+ characters or plots, such books have not historically been published in great abundance . The targeting of these books in schools reflects a disproportionate focus on what is likely a small fraction of holdings in most public school libraries.
Over the 2021–22 school year, PEN America also tracked efforts to ban not only books, but also whole academic courses, textbooks, and digital literacy apps. In Bossier Parish, Louisiana , the Epic reading app was removed from student iPads after parent objections about the inclusion of LGBTQ+ content. The school district in Brevard County, Florida , canceled its math app, Prodigy, for similar reasons. Along with educational gag orders targeting classroom discussions, efforts to censor and control public education are ranging beyond the physical collections of school libraries.
The most banned book titles include the groundbreaking work of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, along with best-selling books that have inspired feature films, television series, and a Broadway show. The list includes books that have been targeted for their LGBTQ+ content, their content related to race and racism, or their sexual content—or all three.
The most banned authors include winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Booker Prize, the Newbery Award, the Caldecott Medal, the Eisner Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the NAACP Image Award, the GLAAD Award for Media Representation, the Stonewall Award, and more.
Book bans in public schools have recurred throughout American history , with notable flare-ups in the McCarthy era and the early 1980s . But, while long present, the scope of such censorship has expanded drastically and in unprecedented fashion since the beginning of the 2021–22 school year. This campaign is in part driven by politics, with state lawmakers and executive branch officials pushing for bans in some cases. In Texas, for example, Republican state representative Matt Krause sent a letter and list with 850 books to school districts, asking them to investigate and report on which of the titles they held in libraries or classrooms. Political pressure of this sort in Texas , South Carolina , Wisconsin , Georgia , and elsewhere has been tied to hundreds of book bans.
Another major factor driving this dramatic expansion of book banning has been the proliferation of organized efforts to advocate for book removals. Organizations and groups involved in pushing for book bans have sprung up rapidly at the local and national levels, particularly since 2021. These range from local Facebook groups to the nonprofit organization Moms for Liberty, a national-level organization that now has over 200 chapters .
In the short period since their formation and expansion, these groups have played a role in at least half of the book bans enacted across the country during the 2021–22 school year. PEN America estimates that at least 20 percent of the book bans enacted in that time frame could be linked directly to the actions of these groups, with many more likely influenced by them. This 20 percent is based on publicly available information and includes cases where a parent or community group took direct action to seek the removal of books by making a statement at a school board meeting, submitting a list of books for formal reconsideration, or filing formal reconsideration paperwork; in many of these cases, the groups also openly touted their role in pushing for book removals. In an additional approximately 30 percent of bans, there is some evidence of the groups’ likely influence, including the use of common language or tactics.
PEN America has identified at least 50 groups operating at the national, state, or local levels to campaign and mobilize around what they view as the dangers of books in K-12 schools, and advocating for book restrictions and bans. Of these 50 groups, eight have regional and local chapters that, between them, number at least 300 in total; some of these operate predominantly through social media. This presents a minimum count, based on news coverage, school board meetings, and groups’ public presence online. , has spread most broadly, with over 200 local chapters identified on their . Other national groups with branches include US Parents Involved in Education (50 chapters), No Left Turn in Education (25), MassResistance (16), Parents’ Rights in Education (12), Mary in the Library (9), County Citizens Defending Freedom USA (5), and Power2Parent (5).While some of these groups have existed for years, the overwhelming majority are of recent origin: more than 70 percent (including chapters) were formed since 2021.
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These varied groups do not all share identical aims, but they have found common cause in advancing an effort to control and limit what kinds of books are available in schools. Broadly, this movement is intertwined with political movements that grew throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, including fights against mask mandates and virtual school, as well as disputes over “critical race theory” that in some states fueled the introduction of educational gag orders prohibiting discussion of “divisive” concepts in classrooms. While many of these groups use language in their mission statements about parents’ rights or religious or conservative views , some also make explicit calls for the exclusion of materials that touch on race (sometimes explicitly critical race theory ) or LGBTQ+ themes .
The impact and role of these groups has been noted in dozens of cases of book challenges around the country. For example, local chapters of Moms for Liberty have been reported as driving efforts to remove books from Florida to North Carolina to Virginia . Chapters of County Citizens Defending Freedom pushed for book removals in Polk County Schools, Florida and Corpus Christi, Texas . In Clark County, Nevada , the group Power2Parent successfully got a book removed from a 10th grade honors English class reading list. Leaders of state chapters of Parents Involved in Education have been quoted calling for book removals at school board meetings in Kansas , Tennessee , and South Dakota , When two students filed a lawsuit with the ACLU of Missouri they claimed the removal of books in Wentzville, MO was part of a “targeted campaign by the St. Charles County Parents Association and No Left Turn in Education’s Missouri chapter to remove particular ideas and viewpoints about race and sexuality from school libraries.”
Although the channels of influence and coordination among these groups are not always clear, and the groups range in size and impact, their role in the book banning movement of the past year is a consistent theme.
In Madison County Schools, Mississippi , for example, a parent who identified herself as the point person for Mississippi’s chapter of MassResistance (a national group also classified as an anti-LGBTQ+ “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center ), expressed “concerns regarding critical race theory” and worked with parents to review the schools’ online library catalogs, seeking books that had been challenged in other parts of the country. By April 2022, the district had said the books were being placed in “restricted circulation” (requiring a parent’s permission to check out) while they were being reviewed.
MassResistance—which claims the January 6 attack on the US Capitol was “clearly a setup” and alleges a “Black Lives Matter and LGBT assault” on schools— took credit for bringing these restrictions about, declaring, “ MassResistance gets involved—things start happening! ” and referencing “‘groomer moms’ in the community” who opposed the removal of the 22 books. In August, the school board voted to place some of the books back in full circulation, but a list of 10 books remain restricted, including Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye , along with The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Another parent who was a vocal critic of the books at a local school board meeting was also identified as the chair of the Moms for Liberty Madison chapter.
Some groups without significant national operations have also had far reach. The Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA), for example, was founded in 2013 to “champion education reform.” But its leaders have spent considerable time and energy opposing climate change education , arguing for the elimination of sex education in K–12 schools , and publishing the misleading 2021 Objectionable Materials Report: Pornography and Age-Inappropriate Material in Florida Public Schools (provocatively named the Porn in Schools Report on their website). With a mailing of their “Porn in Schools” report and follow-up via their legal representative, the Pacific Justice Institute, the FLCA pushed for bans across the state. Ultimately they have played a role in bans in several counties in Florida, such as Jackson County School District , Orange County Public Schools , St. Lucie County Schools , Polk County School District , and Walton County School District . In Walton County School District , the superintendent responded to their email by directing the removal of all books on the list, despite admitting , “I haven’t read one paragraph of the books at this time.” Their advocacy was also connected to ‘warning labels’ being applied to over 100 books in school libraries in Collier County , Florida.
Even smaller, less formal groups have had an impact too. Between February and April 2022, Nixa Public Schools in Missouri received 17 complaints about 16 books, each citing “inappropriate and sexually explicit content,” which were subsequently banned. The woman who filed the most requests confirmed that she was a member of “Concerned Parents of Nixa,” a private Facebook group where community members gather to fight “questionable books, curriculum, and other materials such as sex education in Nixa Public Schools.” Concerned Parents of Nixa recently changed its name to Concerned Parents of the Ozarks . While it is unclear whether their list was solely from another group, the titles they challenged are the same ones seen over and over again amongst school libraries who have had to pull or otherwise eliminate access to them as a result.
These groups have employed a range of common tactics to advance book banning in public schools. Most of these tactics, it should be emphasized, are tactics that many advocacy and community organizing groups employ to a wide range of ends. Citizens are free to organize and advocate; these liberties are protected under the First Amendment’s safeguards for freedom of association. PEN America’s concern is not with the use of such standard organizing and mobilization tactics but rather with the end goal of restricting or banning books. That said, in some cases, members of these groups have also crossed a line, using online harassment or filing criminal complaints to pressure local officials and educators.
One common trend is that many of these groups circulate to their audiences lists of books to target. PEN America saw dozens of lists that circulated online during the 2021–22 school year, and these also occasionally morphed or grew in the process of being shared among groups.
Some groups appear to feed off work to promote diverse books, contorting those efforts to further their own censorious ends. They have inverted the purpose of lists compiled for teachers and librarians interested in introducing a more diverse set of reading materials into the classroom or library. For example, one group, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, referenced multiple lists celebrating books about equity, inclusion, and human rights under the header “ Federal Agencies Are Sexualizing Idaho Libraries ,” accused the federal government of using “taxpayer dollars to promote a pernicious ideology to young children,” and called on the Idaho legislature to reject federal funds for libraries. Another group, the Michigan Liberty Leaders , took an image of books from the Welcoming Schools bullying prevention program created by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation—including books designed to support LGBTQ+ students—and added alarmist language about the books being in schools.
In another example, the list of books created by the FLCA in their “ Porn in Schools” report originated from the website Christian Patriot Daily, which said it received its list from a graduate student in early childhood development promoting LGBTQ+ resources for caregivers. This list has in turn appeared to spread across state lines. In March 2022, in Cherokee County School District in Georgia, a parent presented a list of 225 book challenges . In that list, 41 titles were not only identical to those in the 2021 FLCA report, but they were in the same order, with the same typos found in the original list. The same list also appears in a database of books on the website of Forest Hills Parents United, based in Michigan.
The books on these lists are often framed as dangerous or harmful, and the lists have been used to quicken the pace of book banning, often in violation of or with disregard for established, neutral processes, with demands that all books on such lists be removed from schools immediately.
Members of these groups also flood school districts with official challenges to books and mobilize supporters to dominate discussions at public board meetings. In some cases, parents have screamed to disrupt meetings, or threatened violence . In response to such threats, the Sarasota County, Florida, school board placed limits on public comments at board meetings. School boards in Carmel Clay, Indiana , and Sonoma Valley, California , are considering similar restrictions.
Some groups have at times also helped spur complaints from community members without children in public school. In St. Lucie County Schools, Florida, a complainant submitted official reconsideration challenges for 44 titles from the FLCA’s “Porn in Schools” report, only 20 of which were found in the district. The complainant told a reporter that although they personally did not have children in the district, they were “picked” after attending a meeting hosted by FLCA. “I got picked because I took it seriously,” the complainant said.
In the fall of 2021 in Williamson County Schools, Tennessee, Moms for Liberty pushed for a review of the reading curriculum, stating that the curriculum violated a state law (which PEN America counts as an educational gag order ). The complaints said materials were too focused on the country’s segregationist past and might make children feel uncomfortable about race. After the review, the district published a report that outlined the relationship of complainants to the school district, and only 14 of the 37 complainants had children enrolled and affected by the curriculum targeted by the complaint. Another 14 had no children in the school system at all, while 9 had children enrolled in middle or high schools. One book, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, was ultimately banned permanently, and multiple books had bans placed on what content could be taught, including restrictions on showing students pages 12–13 of Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth—pages that included an illustration of the sea creatures twisting tails, rubbing tummies, and mating.
Although “parents’ rights” is a powerful piece of political rhetoric, in most instances, it is being invoked to mean rights for a particular group of parents with distinct ideological views, rather than a neutral effort to engage all parents and students in ensuring that schools uphold free speech rights. While parents and guardians ought to be partners with educators in their children’s education, and need channels for communicating with school administrators, teachers, and librarians, particularly concerning the education of their own children, public schools are by design supposed to rely on the expertise, ethics, and discretion of educational professionals to make decisions. In too many places, today’s political rhetoric of “parents’ rights” is being weaponized to undermine, intimidate, and chill the practices of these professionals, with potentially profound impacts on how students learn and access ideas and information in schools.
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The role of organized local, regional, and national groups in book-banning campaigns has several implications that are distinct from prior patterns where book challenges tended to originate locally and spontaneously by individual parents. The groups behind these bans often furnish materials, messaging templates, and other kinds of directions that easily facilitate book challenges and imbue their efforts with a degree of focus and determination that can take local school officials by surprise. Groups that enjoy political ties and advocacy resources are able to marshal political support behind their censorious campaigns, putting local teachers, administrators, and school board officials under pressure. Mobilization on social media or at board meetings can also create an atmosphere of intimidation that may undermine the ability of a community to discuss and adjudicate concerns in a measured way.
Most schools’ book reconsideration policies have been created to respond to challenges filed by individual parents over particular books their children read; now that challenges are coming with such increased frequency and scope, schools and districts have sometimes struggled to keep up, as well as to withstand the heightened political pressure and public scrutiny.
The other key implication of the organized nature of these banning campaigns is their ability to reach scale. Whereas traditional book challenges were one-off incidents, the current pattern of escalating, copycat banned book efforts across the country is a testament to the ability of campaigners to leverage tools and communications channels to push for censorship across the country. As their tactics and methods evolve, it stands to reason that a growing number of schools, communities, and legislatures will confront similar challenges.
In another sign of the escalation of tactics to restrict books, criminal charges have been pursued against school officials and librarians in a number of cases in the past year. From to to to , sheriffs have received complaints of the distribution of pornography in schools, among other charges. PEN America found at least 15 documented cases of criminal charges being filed or complaints being filled out regarding distribution of obscenity or pornographic material in public and school libraries during the 2021–22 school year, The leader of Moms for Liberty in Indian River, Florida, accusing the school board and superintendent of distributing pornography. Other groups, including , , and , have issued calls to action for individuals to file criminal complaints about books. While these cases have all rightly been dropped by law enforcement, the movement to involve police in efforts to ban books is another aspect of this campaign that is unprecedented in recent memory. Regardless of the legal outcome, the tactic of pressing criminal charges against educators for offering books to students is an attempt to intimidate and discourage librarians and teachers from teaching or offering books that might spark such a virulent response.
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PEN America reported in the first edition of Banned in the USA (April 2022) that book bans had occurred in 86 school districts in 26 states in the first nine months of the 2021-22 school year. With additional reporting, and looking at the 12-month school year, the Index now lists banned books in 138 school districts in 32 states. These districts include 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students.
Total States and Districts with Banned Books
Total Bans by State
Beyond the school book bans documented in the Index and the efforts of various parties to see their implementation and enforcement, the past year has also seen attempts to change laws and school district policies in ways that make censorious challenges easier to file and impose. Even where such laws and policy changes have not been enacted, their chilling effect has been broadly felt.
The book-banning movement has operated in conjunction with legislative efforts to pass educational gag orders, all as part of what PEN America has referred to as the “ ed scare ”—a campaign to censor free expression in education. While the effort to constrain teachers has primarily progressed in state legislatures—as PEN America has documented, most recently in our August 2022 report America’s Censored Classrooms —and the effort to ban books has erupted mostly within local school districts, the two have increasingly merged, with some state legislators proposing or supporting bills that directly impact the selection and removal of books in school classrooms and libraries.
Under the plurality Supreme Court decision in Island Trees v. Pico , banning or restricting books in public schools for content- or viewpoint-specific reasons is unconstitutional. To safeguard these rights, the ALA and the NCAC have developed best practice guidelines for book reconsideration processes school districts can adopt concerning library materials and instructional materials for which review is requested, whether by a parent, other community member, administrator, or other source. As discussed at length in Banned in the USA , these guidelines are intended to ensure that challenges are addressed in consistent, reasoned, fact-based ways while protecting the First Amendment rights of students and citizens and guarding against censorship.
In the 2021–22 school year, fewer than 4 percent of book bans tracked by PEN America were enacted pursuant to these established best practice guidelines aimed to safeguard students’ rights and protect against censorship. Instead, in numerous cases, school districts either ignored or circumvented their own policies when removing particular books. In other cases, districts followed policies that failed to afford full protection for freedom of expression—for example, by restricting student access to books while they are under review, by failing to convene a committee to review the complaint, or by not having the complainant complete the paperwork or read the whole book to which they were objecting as required by the stated policies.
In some communities where existing procedures are more aligned with the standards set forth in the ALA and NCAC guidelines, or where advocates for book banning have been stifled in their efforts, there have been new efforts to alter those policies and make the removal of books easier.
Such efforts often include a drive to change the “obscenity” determination used to ban books—usually without regard for the relevant legal standard . These changes have taken place in nearly a dozen districts, such as Frisco ISD in Texas , which in June revised its book policies to remove the existing standards of obscenity for materials and replace them with more stringent standards taken from the Texas Penal Code. In practice, this means that a sentence or image may be enough to get a book banned—and that book content will be evaluated without proper context. The inevitable result of the Frisco ISD and similar changes will be increased policing of content in books for young people, as well as the continued erosion of their right to access these materials.
Some policy changes have been advanced at the state level as well, with Texas leading the way. In April, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced new standards for how school districts should handle all content in their libraries. The Texas standards follow state representative Matt Krause’s October 2021 public letter “initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content,” as well as a public letter to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) from Gov. Greg Abbott in November 2021 , asking schools to investigate why their libraries contained allegedly “obscene” and “pornographic” content in schools. Abbott did not provide any specific content examples. (It is worth noting that TASB has no power to change or even to recommend district policies.)
The policy recommendations from the TEA, compiled in response to the public letter from Governor Abbott, implemented four significant process changes of note, none of which comport with accepted best practices. The changes include the following:
While Texas has not made this policy mandatory for its school districts, the policy has begun to shape school library policies. By July 2022, at least two Texas school districts in Tarrant County had changed their acquisition policies based on the TEA’s model policy. For example, now if a book is challenged and removed in Carroll ISD, Texas, that book cannot be requested again for students for five years. In Keller ISD, this provision was changed to ten years.
The trend of district-level policy changes, which largely began in Texas, has picked up steam in other places too. For example, the school board in Hamilton County, Tennessee, accepted board policy recommendations from a special book review committee in March 2022, which removed a statement on the principles of intellectual freedom from the ALA’s “Library Bill of Rights.” This was a striking departure from the norm, as up until this year, it was a generally accepted standard that school board policies concerning acquisitions management and curricular development would reference or otherwise incorporate principles put forth by the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the ALA.
In another instance, Central Bucks County School District in Pennsylvania voted in July 2022 to reassign oversight of library collections from library and education professionals to a committee of the “ superintendents designees ”—politicizing a task previously performed by library and education professionals well versed in sound acquisition principles and policies. The district further undermined its education professionals by moving to refocus collection acquisition strategies away from instructional needs—as determined by teachers, librarians, and other education professionals—toward potentially politicized decisions, such as evaluating books for sexual content using vague standards to determine whether a book should be placed in the library. In so doing, the district ran afoul of NCAC guidelines to ensure practices that “advance fundamental pedagogical goals and not subjective interests.”
From Kansas to Illinois , Indiana to Virginia , North Carolina to Florida , myriad efforts to implement and enforce censorious practices are effectively allowing some parents and citizens to constrain the availability of books for all students in their and other school communities. A raft of changes are making it easier to ban more books more quickly, undermining educators’ and librarians’ work and ultimately students’ rights to access information.
The unrelenting wave of challenges to the inclusion of certain books in school libraries—whether promulgated at the urging of an individual community member, grassroots organization, or government official—has spurred another phenomenon: preemptive book banning. In April, May, and June 2022, PEN America tracked several cases where school administrators have banned books in the absence of any challenge in their own district, seemingly in a preemptive response to potential bills , threats from state officials , or challenges in other districts .
The most significant ban of this type occurred in Collierville, Tennessee , where a school district removed 327 books from shelves in anticipation of a state law that ultimately did not pass. Administrators sorted the books into tiers based on how much the books focus on LGBTQ+ characters or story lines; tier 3, for instance, reflected that “the main character of the book is part of the LGBTQ community, and their sexual identity forms a key component of the plot. The book may contain suggestive language and/or implied sexual interactions.” If a book reached tier 5, according to the sorting guidelines, “the books are being pulled.”
Other preemptive bans were responses to actions at the state level or in neighboring districts. For example, according to Texas media reports , bans in Katy ISD, Clear Creek ISD, and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD were the result of administrators responding either to what was happening in other districts or to an 850-book list compiled and circulated to education officials by Texas state representative Matt Krause .
Finally, PEN America has tracked other instances of books included in banned book displays, or other disputed materials, being quietly removed to avoid controversy. Books are also being labeled or marked in some way as “inappropriate” both in online catalogs and on physical titles themselves. In the Collier County School District in Florida, for instance, warning labels were attached to a group of more than 100 books that disproportionately included stories featuring LGBTQ+ characters and characters of color. While these cases are not included in the Index because they do not meet PEN America’s definition of school book bans, these types of actions could have a chilling effect—applying a stigma to the books in question and the topics they cover—and they merit further study.
While several stories of preemptive and silent book bans have made it into the news or to the attention of PEN America, it is clear that mounting censorship and the punitive approach being taken to the enforcement of book bans is having wide ripple effects . The Supreme Court has sharply restricted viewpoint- and subject-matter-based restrictions on speech precisely because in addition to rendering certain ideas, stories, and opinions off-limits, such measures cast a wider chilling effect on expression. Given the rapid spread of book bans across the country, it seems inevitable that the resulting climate of caution and fear will result in a reluctance among teachers, administrators, and librarians to take risks that could affect their own employment , their budgets, their reputations, and even their personal safety . Emerging data, like a recent survey of school librarians by the School Library Journal in which 97% said they “always,” “often,” or “sometimes” weigh how controversial subject matter might be when deciding on book purchases is pointing clearly to these alarming trends.
Beyond formal book bans, there have also been efforts to keep books out of the hands of children even if they remain in circulation. One prominent example of such activity was “ ,” an initiative of CatholicVote.org in June 2022. CatholicVote encouraged members to check out books from the Pride 2022 displays in children’s sections of public libraries and to take pictures of the empty shelves. Although the group instructed participants to “return your library books on time” and to follow the “letter of the law, so to speak,” was an attempt to remove library materials from availability and to limit students’ access to LGBTQ+-affirming books. In the same month, there were efforts to ban displays of LGBTQ+ materials entirely in some public libraries, such as in , and . The latter resulted in an effort to terminate a librarian for allegedly violating the prohibition.
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The unprecedented flood of book bans in the 2021–22 school year reflects the increasing organization of groups involved in advocating for such bans, the increased involvement of state officials in book-banning debates, and the introduction of new laws and policies. More often than not, current challenges to books originate not from concerned parents acting individually but from political and advocacy groups working in concert to achieve the goal of limiting what books students can access and read in public schools.
As noted previously, the resulting harm is widespread, affecting pedagogy and intellectual freedom and placing limits on the professional autonomy of school librarians and teachers. The repercussions extend further, however, to the well-being of the students affected by these bans. Children deserve to see themselves in books, and they deserve access to a diversity of stories and perspectives that help them understand and navigate the world around them. Public schools that ban books reflecting diverse identities risk creating an environment in which students feel excluded, with potentially profound effects on how students learn and become informed citizens in a pluralistic and diverse society.
Book challenges impede free expression rights, which must be the bedrock of public schools in an open, inclusive, and democratic society. These bans pose a dangerous precedent to those in and out of schools, intersecting with other movements to block or curtail the advances in civil rights for historically marginalized people.
Against the backdrop of other efforts to roll back civil liberties and erode democratic norms , the dynamics surrounding school book bans are a canary in the coal mine for the future of American democracy, public education, and free expression. We should heed this warning.
This report was written by Jonathan Friedman, director, Free Expression and Education Programs, based on research and analysis by Tasslyn Magnusson, Ph.D., and Sabrina Baeta. The report was reviewed and edited by Nadine Farid Johnson, managing director of PEN America Washington and Free Expression Programs; Summer Lopez, chief program officer, Free Expression; and Jeremy C. Young, senior manager, Free Expression and Education, who also helped supervise the production process. Lisa Tolin provided editorial support, and Dominique Baeta provided research assistance. Finally, we extend thanks to the many authors, teachers, librarians, parents, students, and citizens who are fighting book bans, speaking at school board meetings, and bringing attention to these issues, many of whom inspired and informed this report.
Banned Books Week is celebrated annually, with sponsorship from the American Library Association (ALA), the National Association of College Stores, and many other organizations. According to the ALA, "Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States."
ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 book challenges reported in 2021. Censors targeted a record 2,571 unique titles in 2022 , a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community or by and about Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.
The Banned Books Club is a collaboration between libraries and sponsors to make banned books available online and at libraries for free. The University of Chicago and the Digital Public Library of America are offering free access to all Illinois residents through the Palace app.
A number of public libraries nationwide have joined the Books Unbanned initiative, offering free access to commonly challenged or banned titles in eBook form to readers age 13-26. If you fall in that age bracket, sign up for a free temporary library card and read banned books!
According to PEN America, 1,636 different books were banned—not only challenged, but actually removed from shelves—in classrooms, schools, or libraries in the U.S. for at least a portion of the time between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. The following is a list of these banned titles available through Morris Library.
More than 1,500 educators report on book bans and the damaging impact they are having on teacher morale and student learning
WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 3, 2023) – In a new study released by First Book Research & Insights , educators report that the national conversation around book challenges and bans is negatively impacting their classrooms, profession, and student learning. More than 1,500 educators serving children in under-resourced communities responded to the First Book survey to reveal educator perceptions on book restrictions in their school districts, and their impact on student learning.
Through this study, educators discussed the destructive impact that book bans are having on teacher morale. The study revealed that book bans have a chilling effect whether or not teachers are facing book bans in their districts. The survey found that 71 percent of educators, regardless of whether their district has faced bans, believe book banning undermines their expertise, makes them feel distrusted, and increases their stress. These detrimental effects translate into the classroom as nearly two-thirds of educators said that book banning is having a negative impact on their ability to teach .
“Educators serving students in low-income, under-resourced communities remain unheard in the discussion – and they are a critical voice because of their role in supporting student academic growth while managing the negative effects of ongoing actions to ban books,” says Kyle Zimmer, president and CEO of First Book. “The effort to restrict access to books has excessively targeted diverse books, which we know are indispensable in engaging kids, improving student reading scores, and developing a strong sense of self and empathy for others. These books empower young learners to foster a lifelong love of reading.”
Of the more than 1,500 educator respondents, one-third report facing book bans, challenges, or restrictions in their school district. Although only 7 percent of educators have removed books from their classrooms due to book bans, this study reveals the negative and chilling impacts that reach far beyond the districts that are facing bans. Approximately 15 percent have preemptively removed books from their libraries. Eighteen percent of educators have indicated that specific titles have been banned in their school district.
By capturing the experiences and perceptions of educators working on the ground in classrooms, this new study offers insights into the negative impact of book bans on student success in the classroom. In the survey, 72 percent indicated that restricting book access decreases students’ engagement in reading. More than a third of educators noted that book bans discourage students’ critical thinking, and 78 percent reported that students are reading more when given the choice to read banned books.
These findings come on the heels of another study produced by First Book Research & Insights, the organization’s research arm that conducts studies of its network of more than 575,000 educators. The recent Diverse Books Impact Study report, which was released in September, highlights the positive impacts of diverse books in classroom libraries. In the six-month pilot study, after adding diverse books to their classroom libraries, educators reported that reading scores increased by 3 percentage points higher than national annual expected averages, and collective classroom reading time increased by 4 hours per week on average. Classrooms that added bilingual and LGBTQ+ titles reported the greatest improvements.
The findings on student outcomes reinforce educators’ consistent call for diverse titles to support student achievement.
“Educators have expressed their wealth of knowledge and expertise through First Book’s research on both the impact of diverse books and book banning,” says Zimmer. “This study proves that the targeted removal of diverse titles in the midst of a national literacy crisis is detrimental to the academic growth of our children and demoralizing for the educators serving them. And this is an issue for all children, no matter their zip code or identity. Kids who do not have exposure to other cultures and identities will be at a disadvantage.”
First Book’s full report on the banned books survey is available to download here . And the full Diverse Books Impact Study Report can be downloaded here .
Visit our press room for additional information, including our media kit and contact information.
Education transforms lives. First Book is building a world where every child has access to a quality education. We work to remove barriers to education and level the playing field for kids in need. At the heart of our work are the 575,000 members of the First Book Network, the largest online community of educators and professionals dedicated to children in need across North America. This Network is the key to creating systemic change. Through our research arm, First Book Research & Insights, we conduct studies that aggregate their voices to identify barriers to equitable education and inform strategic solutions. To address their needs, we provide free and low-cost books, resources, and access to leading experts through the First Book Marketplace, which uses aggregated buying power to support this underserved community. Founded in Washington D.C. in 1992 as a nonprofit social enterprise, First Book is dedicated to eliminating barriers to learning and inspiring young minds. Learn more at FirstBook.org and visit our award-winning eCommerce website at FBMarketplace.org .
Founded in 1992, First Book is a nonprofit social enterprise building a world where all children have access to a quality education. We are on a mission to ensure that all children, regardless of their background or zip code, can succeed by removing barriers to equitable education because education transforms lives.
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The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has released new data documenting book challenges throughout the United States, finding that challenges of unique titles surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022 numbers, reaching the highest level ever documented by ALA. Read the full announcement .
OIF documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship , as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources in 2023 . Four key trends emerged from the data gathered from 2023 censorship reports:
Note: a previous version of one of these graphics incorrectly referenced the number of unique titles challenged in 2021 as 1,651. In fact, the actual number is 1,858 unique titles challenged. 1,651 is the number of unique titles challenged during the preliminary period between January 1 and August 31, 2022, originally reported in September 2022.
Unite Against Book Bans is ALA's national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship with an array of resources, tools, and actions.
Reporting censorship and challenges to materials, resources, and services is vital to defending library resources and to protect against challenges before they happen.
Lists of frequently challenged books compiled by ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom to inform the public about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools.
A clearinghouse of resources to assist library workers and advocates in responding to and supporting others facing those challenges.
Documents designated by the Intellectual Freedom Committee as Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights and background statements detailing the philosophy and history of each.
ALA compiles data on book challenges from reports filed by library professionals in the field and from news stories published throughout the United States. Because many book challenges are not reported to ALA or covered by the press, the data compiled by ALA represents a snapshot of book censorship.
A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict access to materials or services based upon the objections of a person or group. A challenge to a title may result in access to it being retained, restricted, or withdrawn entirely. Restrictions on access may include relocating the book to a section of the library intended for an older age group than the book is intended for, labeling it with a prejudicial content warning or rating, taking it out of the online catalog so it has to be requested from a staff member, removing it from open and freely browsable stacks, or requiring parental permission to check it out.
Challenges do not simply involve people expressing their point of view, but rather are an attempt to remove materials from curricula or libraries, thereby curtailing the ability of others to access information, views, ideas, expressions, and stories. A formal challenge leads to the reconsideration of the decision to purchase the material or offer the service. This process is governed by a board-approved policy and includes review of the material as a whole to assess if it is aligned with the library or school's mission and meets the criteria delineated in its selection, display, or programming policy (as applicable).
A book is banned when it is entirely removed from a collection in response to a formal or informal challenge.
Any reduction in access to library materials based on an individual or group's believe that they are harmful or offensive is an act of censorship. ALA does not consider weeding of an item based on criteria defined in a library or school district's policy to be a ban, nor do we characterize a temporary reduction in access resulting from the need to review materials to be a ban.
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Most of the targeted books are about Black and L.G.B.T.Q. people, according to the American Library Association. The country’s polarized politics has fueled the rise.
By Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter
Attempts to ban books in the United States surged in 2021 to the highest level since the American Library Association began tracking book challenges 20 years ago, the organization said Monday.
Most of the targeted books were by or about Black and L.G.B.T.Q. people, the association said.
Book challenges are a perennial issue at school board meetings and libraries. But more recently, efforts fueled by the country’s intensely polarized political environment have been amplified by social media, where lists of books some consider to be inappropriate for children circulate quickly and widely.
Challenges to certain titles have been embraced by some conservative politicians, cast as an issue of parental choice and parental rights. Those who oppose these efforts, however, say that prohibiting the books violates the rights of parents and children who want those titles to be available.
“What we’re seeing right now is an unprecedented campaign to remove books from school libraries but also public libraries that deal with the lives and experience of people from marginalized communities,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s office for intellectual freedom. “We’re seeing organized groups go to school boards and library boards and demand actual censorship of these books in order to conform to their moral or political views.”
The library association said it counted 729 challenges last year to library, school and university materials, as well as research databases and e-book platforms. Each challenge can contain multiple titles, and the association tracked 1,597 individual books that were either challenged or removed.
The count is based on voluntary reporting by educators and librarians and on media reports, the association said, and is not comprehensive.
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The key resource for researching why a particular title was challenged or banned are the publications of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom. The Office maintains information on which books are challenged and why and regularly publishes this information in the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy , where there may also be discussion of the events surrounding a challenge, and in a compilation published about every three years, most recently in Banned Books: Defending our Freedom to Read , edited by Robert P. Doyle. (Before 2016, similar information was in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.)
Doyle and others used histories of censorship to compile the initial listing of challenged or banned books; this bibliography is in the Guide , as well as included on a list of books on censorship maintained by the ALA Library.
More recent entries are derived from the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy or Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.
This publication is available in many libraries around the country, or may be ordered from the ALA Store..
The Banned Books Week pages on the ALA website offer many ways to look at the challenge data that has been collection. The links provided here will be of use to students doing research.
If your library does not have "Banned Books," use the library catalog to locate books on censorship. Useful subject headings are "Challenged books--United States" or "Censorship--United States."
Many libraries offer databases enabling access to periodicals and newspapers. Ask your librarian about accessing these--or visit your library's website, library card in hand, to access.
Use newspaper indexes such as the following to read coverage of book challenges in the communities where they occurred.
Use literature databases such as the following to seek out biographies of authors, book synopses, bibliographies, and critical analysis.
Often, a general web search of < "[book title]" and (banned or challenged) > will yield up useful articles and blog posts about challenges. For example, < "looking for alaska" (banned or challenged) > will bring up newspaper coverage--as well as a video by the author--on the censorship challenges faced by Looking for Alaska , by John Green.
The tribune received records explaining individual school districts’ decisions, leading to each book’s statewide ban..
Records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune reveal the specific reasons why select Utah school districts considered certain books “objective sensitive” material, leading to 13 titles being banned from all public schools in the state .
There are three specific reasons to chose from when categorizing a book as “objective sensitive” material, according to a questionnaire districts or charters must fill out when explaining their decisions. The reasons are based off of the state’s new “objective sensitive” material standards.
Local education officials can select all that apply. If at least three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools) select at least one of these options for the same book title, the book must be removed statewide.
According to a copy of the questionnaire obtained by The Tribune, the three reasons are:
Option 1: It contains a description or depiction of “human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal.”
Option 2: It contains a description or depiction of “acts of human masturbation, sexual intercourse, or sodomy.”
Option 3: It contains a description or depiction of “fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals or [the] pubic region.”
The 13 already banned titles were ordered off all Utah public school shelves on Aug. 2, based on decisions made by just six school districts.
Here are the options each district cited when deciding to categorize the books as “objective sensitive” material.
Three districts decided to ban this autobiographical graphic novel, records show.
Davis School District cited all three options.
Nebo School District cited options No. 2 and 3.
Washington County School District cited option No. 1, specifically noting pages 292-293.
Five districts decided to ban this romantic fantasy novel, records show.
Jordan School District cited options 2 and 3.
Davis, Alpine, Nebo and Washington County school districts cited all three options. Washington County School District specifically noted page 247.
Four districts decided to ban this romantic fantasy novel, records show.
Washington County School District cited options No. 1 and 3, specifically noting page 24 .
Davis, Alpine and Nebo school districts cited all three options.
Washington County School District cited options No. 1 and 3, specifically noting page 139.
Jordan School District cited options No. 2 and 3.
Davis, Alpine, Nebo and Washington County school districts cited all three options. Washington County School District noted pages 202-205 in particular.
Washington County School District cited options No. 1 and 3, specifically noting page 247.
Three districts decided to ban this fantasy novel, records show.
Washington County School District cited option No. 3, particularly noting page 354.
Three districts decided to ban this young adult fiction book, records show.
Washington County School District cited options No. 1 and 3, particularly noting page 339.
Alpine and Davis school districts cited all three options.
Washington County School District cited options No 1 and 3, particularly noting page 85.
Nebo and Davis school districts cited all three options.
Three districts decided to ban this collection of poetry and prose, records show.
Washington County School District cited option No. 1, particularly noting page 69.
Jordan and Davis school districts cited all three options.
Three districts decided to ban this science fiction book, records show.
Davis School District cited options No. 1 and 2
Washington County School District cited all three options, noting pages 140-141 and pages 165-166.
Davis, Tooele County and Washington County school districts cited all three options. Washington County School District noted page 404.
Four districts decided to ban this young adult fiction book, records show.
Jordan, Alpine, Davis and Washington County school districts cited all three options. Washington County School District specifically cited page 19.
Under the law, Utah State Board of Education members have 30 days from the moment a book’s statewide ban is instituted to potentially overturn it.
To do so, “three or more” USBE leaders within that time frame must request that the material be placed on a board meeting agenda, so leaders can vote on the matter.
If no hearing is held, the statewide removal stands.
Moving forward, districts and charters must report any “objective sensitive” material that they decide to remove to USBE.
If the statewide removal threshold is met, the state school board will notify all districts and charters within 10 school days to remove the title from student access. USBE will also add the title to a public list posted on its website .
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
Here’s how utah plans to enforce statewide book ban retroactively, school districts await statewide book ban list as utah plans to retroactively enforce new law, utah officials unsure how to enforce new statewide book ban retroactively — but it may mean more work for public schools, gov. cox signs bill making it easier to ban books from utah schools statewide, automatic statewide ban for certain books in utah schools bill heads to gov. cox’s desk, ‘does that not make the point’: utah lawmaker cut off while reading from sarah j. maas book during book ban debate, california-style laws and foreign influence: why the legislature is rushing to amend the utah constitution, letter: in 2020, “a good man beat a con man.” it’s time for a good woman to do the same., letter: millcreek can go further with their proposed adu code changes, ‘excited and worried’: hundreds of salt lake city kids begin school at new campuses after elementary closures, the feds own millions of acres of public land in utah. now the state is suing for control of over half of it., featured local savings.
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VIDEO
COMMENTS
The American Library Association reported an "unprecedented spike" in the number of book removal requests in the final months of 2021, and most of these challenges focus on books about people from marginalized communities.
Banning of books has become increasingly prevalent and politically polarizing in the United States. While the primary goal of these bans is to restrict access to books, conversations about the bans have garnered attention on a wider scale. ... Donald G. Costello College of Business at George Mason University Research Paper, Available at SSRN ...
Author Ashley Hope Pérez wrote Out of Darkness, which is on the American Library Association's lists of most banned books. This essay by Ashley Hope Pérez is part of a series of interviews with ...
After book banning efforts in school libraries reached an all time high in 2021, 2022 is trending to exceed last year's figure. Instead of arguing with disgruntled parents and Facebook groups, many underpaid librarians and teachers, Salem described, choose to self-censor, quietly removing contentious titles from their shelves to avoid unfair ...
The student plaintiffs in Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) march in protest of the Long Island school district's removal of titles such as Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. While the district would ultimately return the banned books to its shelves, the Supreme Court's ultimate ruling largely allowed school leaders to maintain discretion over information access.
In the 2022-23 school year, PEN America recorded 3,362 instances of books banned, an increase of 33 percent from the 2021-22 school year. Over 40 percent of all book bans occurred in school districts in Florida. Across 33 school districts, PEN America recorded 1,406 book ban cases in Florida, followed by 625 bans in Texas, 333 bans in ...
Book banning and censorship is appearing again in states and school districts. The history of book banning goes back as far as recorded time. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins discusses the U.S. court system's history support of the First Amendment and against censorship. He outlines the implications of the most recent book banning incidents and ...
Bryan Anselm for The New York Times. By Claire Moses. Published July 31, 2022 Updated Feb. 27, 2023. Book-banning attempts have grown in the U.S. over the past few years from relatively isolated ...
He wanted to show that war brutalized soldiers, as well as the civilians caught in their path. The novel was a damning indictment of American warfare and the racist attitudes held by some nice ...
PEN America reported in the first edition of Banned in the USA (April 2022) that book bans had occurred in 86 school districts in 26 states in the first nine months of the 2021-22 school year. With additional reporting, and looking at the 12-month school year, the Index now lists banned books in 138 school districts in 32 states.
2. INTRODUCTION. Books banning is a social, educational and pedagogical problem because it creates problems for. readers, students and also teachers in different ways. For readers the measure ...
stages and identifies the effects book banning has on different groups and communities. For. teachers, book banning means shaky, ever-changing curriculum, fear for personal choices, and. the tragedy of self-censorship. For students, book banning means a denial of First Amendment. rights, a narrow world view, and psychological deficits.
According to PEN America, 1,636 different books were banned—not only challenged, but actually removed from shelves—in classrooms, schools, or libraries in the U.S. for at least a portion of the time between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. The following is a list of these banned titles available through Morris Library.
More than 1,500 educators report on book bans and the damaging impact they are having on teacher morale and student learning. WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 3, 2023) - In a new study released by First Book Research & Insights, educators report that the national conversation around book challenges and bans is negatively impacting their classrooms ...
Book banning is nothing new. In fact, it has been around for centuries. What is considered the first book ban in the United States took place in 1637 in what is now known as Quincy, Massachusetts. Thomas Morton published his New English Canaan which was subsequently banned by the Puritan government as it was considered a harsh and heretical ...
OIF documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship, as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources in 2023. Four key trends emerged from the data gathered from 2023 censorship reports: Pressure groups in 2023 focused on public libraries in addition to targeting school libraries.
Banned Books: A Study of Censorship. uspired by Carole A. Williams' By the senior year, most students have "Studying Challenged Novels: Or, developed a love for at least some author or How I Beat Senioritis" (EJ, Novem- genre of literature. As pre-reading exercises, ber 1988), I created a senior English we consider the role of books in our lives.
Here are the ten most frequently challenged books of 2021, according to the library association. . 1. 'Gender Queer,' by Maia Kobabe. In this 2019 illustrated memoir, Kobabe, who is nonbinary ...
Yes, I banned a book. I am a seasoned librarian and academic library director and a supporter of free speech and democracy,2 but I banned a book. The term heresy quickly comes to mind in the world of librarianship, but the story is much deeper than it first appears. The very temporary banning was simply an object lesson to our campus community ...
WRIT 101: College Writing. irginia ReevesMay 5, 2023Book Banning Negatively Affects Us and Should B. StoppedBa. biting books for. long time; however, this practice is not beneficial or right forreaders or b. oks. Prohibiting access to books discourages authors from creating origina. writtenworks, oks is an.
Details are available in ALA's "Books Banned and Challenged 2007-2008; 2008-2009; 2009-2010; 2010-2011; 2011-2012; and 2012-2013," and the "Kids' Right to Read Project Report." ... Has full-text articles and book reviews, biographical essays. Library and Information Science Source - Full-text and indexed entries from library science literature ...
A banned book is a book that may be: Removed from a library or libraries. Not allowed to be published. Not allowed to enter a country. Not allowed to exist, or be physically destroyed such as the case of book burning during Nazi Germany. The most extreme form of banning is the death or demand for the death of the author, most recently with ...
Essay On Banning Books. Since 1982, all kinds of books have been banned for the content they hold. Topics like race, sexually explicit content, homosexualaity, religion and more. Books are banned by librarians and teachers because they do not want children or teenagers to read about these topics. Children and teenagers are told they are not ...
Three districts decided to ban this science fiction book, records show. Jordan School District cited options No. 2 and 3. Davis School District cited options No. 1 and 2.