The State of Book Banning in 2024: It’s Not Just About the Books

Historically, book challenges usually originated from individual parents seeking to restrict certain books within libraries. However, times have changed. According to the American Library Association, the most recent book challenges are brought by a growing, well-organized, conservative movement to remove books about race, history, gender identity, sexuality, and reproductive health that do not meet their approval from America's schools and libraries. ALA data shows that challenges of unique titles surged 65% across the United States in 2023 compared to 2022. This alarming increase reached an all-time high, with 4,240 distinct book titles targeted. But book banning is not only about the books; the movement threatens teachers, librarians, and even authors.
 

Threats to Public Libraries

In 2023, pressure groups who had previously targeted school libraries began focusing their attention on public libraries. The number of challenged titles at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges. Public libraries have long been promoters of community engagement and the right to read, but they are now becoming battlegrounds.

In a case documented by Capital and Main, the conservative city council in Huntington Beach, CA passed a resolution to stop children from having access to books and materials in the city library that contained “any content of a sexual nature.” Some books about puberty and potty training (including Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi) were moved to the adult section of the library, and library supporters feared that books about “gender identity” and race might be the next up for “relocation.” In March the council also authorized a process that could put a private company in charge of managing the library.

Threats to Teachers and Librarians

As book challenges increase, school and public librarians are often subject to name-calling and social media attacks, as well as direct threats to their jobs, their safety, their employment, and their very liberty. State legislatures have adopted 110 bills that PEN America, a group that defends freedom of expression, calls “educational gag orders.” A growing number of states and localities are pursuing legislation to impose fines or imprisonment, or both, on librarians and school employees who disregard policies in these bills and distribute material deemed to be obscene or harmful. Librarians and teachers across the country are worried that efforts to ban or challenge books, movies, magazines, art, and other forms of creative expression could lead to arrest and imprisonment for anyone hosting such works.

 

• An Alabama library board fired the library director and several staff members for refusing to deny the public access to 113 books.

• Librarians at the Huntington Beach Public Library have been disparaged in public meetings as groomers and pedophiles. Library supporters who handed out leaflets opposing book relocations were similarly branded on Facebook and other social media.

• A Texas police officer spent two years investigating three school librarians, wanting them arrested and charged with a felony because they allowed children access to literature that he personally deemed obscene

• Iowa’s book-banning bill mandates that school libraries remove books containing “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act” as defined by the Iowa Code. The law — which is tricky to interpret — holds individual teachers and librarians accountable if books in violation of the code are found on shelves.

• Utah legislators passed a bill ordering 13 titles, including books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas, to be removed from all public school classrooms and libraries. The bill claims that librarians, teachers, and school board members should suffer criminal “consequences” for having these books on school library shelves.

• And there are many more examples.

Effects on Authors

The consequences of book bans can also extend to authors, causing many to not write the stories they dreamed of writing. Sweeping and deliberately vague book-banning bills have resulted in soft-banning -- preemptively excluding or removing a title before an official ban is instituted. These soft bans mainly apply to books about LGBTQIA+ people (or even queer animals). Fearful teachers have removed books about queer and genderqueer characters from classroom libraries because of worry about impending bans.

In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, author Seema Yasmin, whose books deal with LGBTQ+ characters, said that some educators told her they feared they might lose their jobs and pensions if they included her books in their class libraries. “The bans began before my books were even published.”

Soft banning also extends to book sellers, such as large chain stores, who want to avoid complaints about books with controversial subjects. Confusion, fear, and the threat of lost income means that many books never even make it to bookshelves. Soft bans can cause corporate executives or well-meaning but frightened teachers to prevent readers from ever discovering certain stories.

As for authors: who wants to write a book that no one will read?

Raising Awareness and Funds to Defend the Right to Read!

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For more information about the state of book banning, refer to: ala.org, pen.org, everylibrary.org, or bannedbooksweek.org,