A total of 1,648 individual book titles, many of them addressing issues related to race or sexuality, were banned by school districts in 32 states in the last school year, according to the new analysis. More than 5,000 schools nationwide banned student access to books in libraries and classrooms, according to the report compiled by Pen America, a nonprofit organization that advocates for freedom of expression in literature. There has been a “proliferation of organized efforts to support book removal,” the report says, from right-wing politicians in states like Texas, Georgia and Wisconsin to at least 50 groups that have emerged either in person or on Facebook. Many of the books have been banned for simply featuring people who identify as LGBTQ+, with a third of all banned books from April to June featuring people with such identities, often on the spurious grounds that the titles are “obscene”. Race and discussion of the US’s racist past are also the target of book bans, with 40% of titles banned featuring prominent characters of color. “While we think of book bans as the work of individual concerned citizens, our report demonstrates that today’s wave of bans represents a concerted campaign to ban books by sophisticated, ideological and well-equipped advocacy organizations,” said Suzanne Nossel, director advisor. officer of Pen America. “This censorship movement is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, driving wedges into communities, forcing teachers and librarians out of their jobs, and chilling the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpins a thriving democracy.” . While book bans have long been part of America’s educational fabric, the Pen report suggests they are now driven less by the complaints of individual parents and more by organized, ideological groups and overt pressure from politicians. About 40% of book bans in the past year have been linked to political pressure or legislation aimed at restricting and reforming teaching, the report estimates. In November, for example, Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina, called for Maia Kobabe’s book Gender Queer: A Memoir to be removed from school libraries because it was “sexually obscene” and “pornographic.” Kobabe’s book was the most banned book last school year, expelled from 41 school districts, followed by All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M Johnson, banned in 29 districts, and Out of Darkness, by Ashley Hope Pérez, banned in 24 regions. Among the most banned authors is Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate. Texas led the way with book bans, followed by Florida and Pennsylvania. The push to ban certain books has sparked backlash in some states. Shortly after Texas state lawmaker Matt Krause asked the state’s school libraries to consider possible removal of 850 books, a group of librarians launched a broad online campaign to fight the bans, deluging state politicians with tweets and emails on the issue . Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, a school district’s decision to ban When the Emperor Was Divine, a book by Julie Otsuka about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, has sparked a furious backlash from local teachers, parents and students, who organized rallies to protest the move. However, such bans continued unabated throughout the US. “This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in more and more students losing access to the literature that equips them to face the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” said Jonathan Friedman, lead author of the Pen report. “The work of groups organizing and advocating to ban books in schools is particularly harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who are forced to experience life-affirming stories disappearing from classrooms and library shelves.”
