essay on why books should be banned

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The rise in book bans, explained

Book challenges in America aren’t new — but over the past year, they’ve reached a fever pitch. A majority of the books that have been targeted nationwide focus on sexual orientation, gender identity, race and racism. Consider “ The Hate U Give ” by Angie Thomas, which has been challenged for an alleged anti-police agenda, and “ This Book Is Gay ” by Juno Dawson, a nonfiction book about sexuality and gender.

The situation is “unprecedented in its scale, and in the proliferation of organized groups who are trying to remove whole lists of books at once in multiple school districts, across a growing number of states,” says Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, an advocacy group.

These are books school systems don’t want you to read, and why

According to an April report from PEN America, there were 1,586 instances of individual books being banned during the nine-month period from July 1, 2021, to March 31, affecting 1,145 book titles. Texas had the most bans (713), followed by Pennsylvania (456), Florida (204) and Oklahoma (43). That’s an “alarming” spike, compared with previous years, the group notes.

“From my place in the world, I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, who started working for the organization in 2000. She noted that social media is amplifying the situation. “A parent will stand up, do this impassioned speech about obscenity in school libraries in Virginia, and it goes viral on Facebook.”

The next book ban: States aim to limit titles students can search for

Amid the heated discussions about the issue, sometimes terminology can become muddled. To help clarify, we spoke to experts about the difference between a challenge and a ban, why books are challenged and when the current wave began. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:

• The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars December 21, 2023 The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars December 21, 2023
• Half of challenged books return to schools. LGBTQ books are banned most. December 23, 2023 Half of challenged books return to schools. LGBTQ books are banned most. December 23, 2023
• Protester opposed to book bans gets Bible pulled from some Utah schools June 3, 2023 Protester opposed to book bans gets Bible pulled from some Utah schools June 3, 2023

What You Need to Know About the Book Bans Sweeping the US

What you need to know about the book bans sweeping the u.s., as school leaders pull more books off library shelves and curriculum lists amid a fraught culture war, we explore the impact, legal landscape and history of book censorship in schools..

• The American Library Association reported a record-breaking number of attempts to ban books in 2022— up 38 percent from the previous year. Most of the books pulled off shelves are “written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color."
• U.S. school boards have broad discretion to control the material disseminated in their classrooms and libraries. Legal precedent as to how the First Amendment should be considered remains vague, with the Supreme Court last ruling on the issue in 1982.
• Battles to censor materials over social justice issues pose numerous implications for education while also mirroring other politically-motivated acts of censorship throughout history. 

Here are all of your questions about book bans answered by TC experts. 

Alex Eble, Assistant Professor of Economics and Education; Sonya Douglass, Professor of Education Leadership; Michael Rebell, Professor of Law and Educational Practice; and Ansley Erickson, Associate Professor of History and Education Policy. (Photos; TC Archives) 

How Do Book Bans Impact Students? 

Prior to the rise in bans, white male youth were already more likely to see themselves depicted in children’s books than their peers, despite research demonstrating how more culturally inclusive material can uplift all children, according to a study, forthcoming in the Quarterly Journal of Economics , from TC’s Alex Eble.  

“Books can change outcomes for students themselves when they see people who look like them represented,” explains the Associate Professor of Economics and Education. “What people see affects who they become, what they believe about themselves and also what they believe about others…Not having equitable representation robs people of seeing the full wealth of the future that we all can inhabit.” 

While books have stood in the crossfire of political battles throughout history, today’s most banned books address issues related to race, gender identity and sexuality — major flashpoints in the ongoing American culture war. But beyond limiting the scope of how students see themselves and their peers, what are the risks of limiting information access? 

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. (Photo credit: unknown) 

“[Book bans] diminish the quality of education students have access to and restrict their exposure to important perspectives that form the fabric of a culturally pluralist society like the United States,” explains TC’s Sonya Douglas s, Professor of Education Leadership. “It's a battle over the soul of the country in many ways; it's about what we teach young people about our country, what we determine to be the truth, and what we believe should be included in the curriculum they're receiving. There's a lot at stake there.” 

Material stripped from libraries and curriculum include works written by Black authors that discuss police brutality, the history of slavery in the U.S. and other issues. As such, Black students are among those who may be most affected by bans across the country, but — in Douglass’ view — this is simply one of the more recent disappointments in a long history of Black communities being let down by public education — chronicled in her 2020 book, and further supported by a 2021 study from Douglass’ Black Education Research Center that revealed how Black families lost trust in schools following the pandemic response and murder of George Floyd.

In that historical and cultural context — even as scholars like Douglass work to implement Black studies curriculums — the failure of schools to properly integrate Black experiences into the curriculum remains vast. 

“We want to make sure that children learn the truth, and that we give them the capacity to handle truths that may be uncomfortable and difficult,” says Douglass, citing Germany as an example of a nation that has prioritized curriculum that highlights its own injustices, such as the Holocaust. “This moment again requires us to take stock of the fact that racism and bigotry still are a challenging part of American life. When we better understand that history, when we see the patterns, when we recognize the source of those issues, we can then do something about it.” 

Beginning in 1933, members of Hitler Youth regularly burned books written by prominent Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers. (Photo: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo, dated 1938) 

Why Is Banning Books Legal? 

While legal battles over book censorship in schools consistently unfold at local levels, the wave of book bans across the U.S. surfaces a critical question: why hasn’t the United States had more definitive legal closure on this issue? 

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a noncommittal ruling that continues to keep school and library books in the political crosshairs more than 40 years later. In Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982), the Court deemed that “local school boards have broad discretion in the management of school affairs” and that discretion “must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.” 

But what does this mean in practice? In these kinds of cases, the application of the First Amendment hinges on the existence of evidence that books are banned for political reasons and violate freedom of expression. However, without more explicit guidance, school boards often make decisions that prioritize “community values” first and access to information second. 

While today's recent book bans most frequently include topics related to racial justice and gender identity (pictured above), other frequently targeted titles include Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close , The Kite Runner and The Handmaid's Tale . (Cover images courtesy of: Viking Books, Sourcebooks Fire, Balzer + Bray, Oni Press, Random House ‎ and Farrar, Straus and Giroux). 

“America traditionally has prided itself on local control of education — the fact that we have active citizen and parental involvement in school board issues, including curriculum,” explains TC’s Michael Rebell , Professor of Law and Educational Practice. “We have, whether you want to call it a clash or a balancing, of two legal considerations here: the ability of children to freely learn what they need to learn to be able to exercise their constitutional rights, and this traditional right of the school authorities to determine what the curriculum is.” 

So would students benefit from more national and uniform legal guidance on book banning? In this political climate, Rebell attests, the risks very well might outweigh the potential rewards. 

“Your local institutions are —in theory — protecting the values you believe in. And if somebody in Washington were going to say that we couldn't have books that talk about transgender rights and things in New York libraries, we'd go crazy, right?” said Rebell, who leads the Center for Educational Equity . “So I can't imagine that in this polarized environment, people would be in favor of federal law, whatever it said.” 

Why Do Waves of Book Bans Keep Happening?

Historians date censorship back all the way to the earliest appearance of written materials. Ancient Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti began eliminating historical texts in 259 B.C., and in 35 A.D., Roman emperor Caligula objected to the ideals of Greek freedom depicted in The Odyssey . In numerous waves of censorship since then, book bans have consistently manifested the struggle for political control. 

“We have to think about [the current bans] as part of a longer pattern of fights over what is in curriculum and what is kept out of it,” explains TC’s Ansley Erickson , Associate Professor of History and Education Policy, who regularly prepares local teachers on how to integrate Harlem history into social studies curriculum. 

“The United States’ history, since its inception, is full of uses of curriculum to shape politics, the economy and the culture,” says Erickson. “This is a really dramatic moment, but the curriculum has always been political, and people in power have always been using it to emphasize their power. And historically marginalized groups have always challenged that power.” 

One example: when Latinx students were forbidden from speaking Spanish in their Southwest schools throughout the 20th century, they worked to maintain their traditions and culture at home. 

“These bans really matter, but one of the ways we can imagine a response is by looking back at how people created spaces for what wasn’t given room for in the classroom,” Erickson says. 

What Could Happen Next?

American schools stand at a critical inflection point, and amid this heated debate, Rebell sees civil discourse at school board meetings as a paramount starting point for any sort of resolution. “This mounting crisis can serve as a motivator to bring people together to try to deal with our differences in respectful ways and to see how much common ground can be found on the importance of exposing all of our students to a broad range of ideas and experiences,” says Rebell. “Carve-outs can also be found for allowing parents who feel really strongly that certain content is inconsistent with their religious or other values to exempt their children from certain content without limiting the options for other children.”

But students, families and educators also have the opportunity to speak out, explains Douglass, who expressed concern for how her own daughter is affected by book bans. 

“I’d like to see a groundswell movement to reclaim the nation's commitment to education — to recognize that we're experiencing growing pains and changes in terms of what we stand for; and whether or not we want to live up to the democratic ideal of freedom of speech; different ideas in the marketplace, and a commitment to civics education and political participation,” says Douglass. 

As publishers and librarians file lawsuits to push back, students are also mobilizing to protest bans — from Texas to western New York and elsewhere. But as more local battles unfold, bigger issues remain unsolved. 

“We need to have a conversation as a nation about healing; about being able to confront the past; about receiving an apology and beginning that process of reconciliation,” says Douglass. “Until we tackle that head on, we'll continue to have these types of battles.” 

— Morgan Gilbard

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, staff or Trustees either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.

Tags: Views on the News Education Policy K-12 Education Social Justice

Programs: Economics and Education Education Leadership History and Education

Departments: Education Policy & Social Analysis

Published Wednesday, Sep 6, 2023

Teachers College Newsroom

Address: Institutional Advancement 193-197 Grace Dodge Hall

Box: 306 Phone: (212) 678-3231 Email: views@tc.columbia.edu

• Impact Guild

Censorship or Protection? A Debate on Book Banning in Schools

Book Banning Is on the Rise, But Who Does it Benefit?

By Suzanne Gallagher , Executive Director, Parents’ Rights In Education;  Allan and Sheri Rivlin , CEO and President of Zen Political Research; Asra Q. Nomani , Journalist and Education Advocate

This debate is being published in collaboration with The Impact Guild , a professional network for people who create, use, or distribute media, arts, or entertainment for social good or healthy democracy. 

Is the Removal of Books From a School Library, “Banning?”

By Suzanne Gallagher –  Executive Director, Parents’ Rights In Education

“Banning” is defined as “legally or officially prohibiting something.” In the case of a public school placing restrictions on books based on inappropriate content for minors, no official ban occurs because the controversial books are available elsewhere via booksellers or the Internet. 

The American Library Association (ALA), however, would have you think otherwise. According to a 2022 AP report , the ALA claims the wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify. Banned Book Week, sponsored annually by the ALA, is promoted in libraries around the country via table displays, posters, essay contests, and other events highlighting contested works. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, says “I’ve never seen anything like this… It used to be a parent had learned about a given book and had an issue with it. Now, we see campaigns where organizations are compiling lists of books, without necessarily reading or even looking at them.”

Inappropriate Library Books for Minors Are Not New

We have to go back to the mid-’70s to find out what the Supreme Court said about “book banning” in K–12 local schools. I n October 1981, SCOTUS agreed to review a case stemming from a decision by the school board of Island Trees, Long Island, to remove nine books from its libraries and curriculum. According to one of the board’s press releases, the books were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic (sic) and just plain filthy.” In 1980, a Federal Court of Appeals declared it was “permissible and appropriate” for local school boards “to make decisions based upon their personal, social, political, and moral views.” The court thereby upheld a 1977 ban by the school board in Warsaw, Indiana, against five books, including Sylvia Plath’s novel “The Bell Jar.” 

In the end, in Island Trees School District v. Pico , t he Justices were unable to come to a majority agreement and instead issued what is known as a “plurality” opinion, in which some combination of justices signed on to three different opinions in order to render an outcome. The standard from Pico is that school officials may not remove books from the school library simply because they dislike the ideas in the book. However, school officials may remove a book from a school library if it is inappropriate for the children of the school. 

Significantly, there are no clear federal laws that specify what rights school boards or local governments have to decide what books will be available in school or public libraries. That is one reason the Supreme Court agreed to review the Island Trees case—as a way of sorting out the conflicting rights of local authorities and readers. 

It’s Always About the Money

Curriculum companies have much to gain if these additional books are available and promoted in the school library for students and school staff to supplement their narrative. The campaign to rid libraries of anti-family literature in the name of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice is just one initiative of the progressive plan. Parents, censored by their school boards, are not giving up. They are laying the groundwork for a program to inspire local communities to take back control of their school districts.

Communities Should Decide What Books Students Can Read, Not Divisive Politicians

By Allan and Sheri Rivlin  – CEO and President of Zen Political Research

Throughout our history, Americans have been able to find common ground resolutions to our differences through respectful discourse, creative problem-solving, and tolerance for our different points of view. Recently, however, our politics has become dominated by adversarial standoffs between extreme positions and efforts to delegitimize opponents’ (real or imagined) agendas to destroy American values and threaten the safety of “our” children and families.

Improving our schools now needs less political strife and more collaboration. Parents, teachers, and librarians, working as a collaborative team, are best equipped to steer individual students away from books that may be inappropriate for their stage of development, and toward books that may answer their individual inquiries and, more generally, expand their knowledge base.

Defined by Division

Throughout our history, we have been a nation defined by our divisions; the first battles over slavery, then over segregation, were joined at the start of the 20 th Century by battles over the right of men to drink alcohol, and the right of women to vote. Our recent book , “Divided We Fall: Why Consensus Matters”, details how the modern political system rewards groups that take uncompromising and extreme positions. Often, these differences have taken the form of fights over what books are available in bookstores and libraries. Many books have drawn opposition for including sexual relationships, relationships between people of different races, and relationships between people of the same gender. The controversies reflect deeply held divisions over religion and morality and are so varied that it is impossible to define criteria to determine what books are appropriate for adults or minors to read at each stage in their development. 

Because we cannot agree on the “what”, we continue to battle on the question of “who” should decide. What should be the role of students, parents, teachers, librarians, and school administrators, in deciding what books are appropriate for each child to read? What should be the role of elected politicians serving on Boards of Education, State Legislators, and Governors? Students are in a special category because they are minors, so parents will always be legally responsible for all the important decisions in their lives.

There is No Enemy, Just a Different Point of View

Suzanne Gallagher claims to represent all parents, but she only represents some. She represents those who agree with her, in opposition to parents who hold a different political, religious, or moral view. The American right to free assembly is guaranteed by the First Amendment, so we applaud her efforts to support parents who believe their rights are not being respected. We take issue with any group that defines the agenda of another group as evil, extreme, and a dangerous threat. The people who oppose book banning are none of these things, they are parents who are motivated by the desire for our schools to be non-threatening, supportive environments for their child’s growth and exploration.

Your opponents across the room in your school or school district meetings about book banning may not be the Gender Queer, Marxist, Black Lives Matter activist you imagine you are fighting. With more than 80% of Americans telling a 2022 CBS News Poll that they oppose book banning, the parents speaking against banning a particular book from a particular library may be a Democrat, Republican, or political independent who cares about the learning environment for their child who may be white, black, or some other race; Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or some other faith; gay, straight, or uncertain, as they look to develop their personal expression of their individuality.

Complex and Unpleasant Truths

The traditional liberal point of view is that heterogeneity of thought is far less dangerous than homogeneity of thought and that students, parents, and teachers should be aligned in the process of exposing students to new ideas at the appropriate age for each student. Liberals believe the real world is full of complexity and unpleasant truths, American history includes greatness as well as great tragedy, and human sexuality arrives in diverse forms as early as middle school with the potential to cause great joy as well as great harm to students’ developing identities. It is important that our schools and libraries reflect these values as well. 

We Need to Apply the Penthouse Standard to K-12 Schools

By Asra Q. Nomani – Journalist, Education Advocate, and Author of “Woke Army”

As a journalist and author, I love books. As an immigrant from India at the age of four, my best friend later became Nancy Drew, the fictional detective whose adventures I adored. At 18, I got my first internship at Harper’s Magazine after scouring the magazines in my hometown library in Morgantown, W.V., and cold calling the magazine’s office. The editor who interviewed me told me she loved a profile I had written for West Virginia University’s Daily Athenaeum of the hippie activist, Abbie Hoffman, and hired me on the spot.

All my life, I’ve been a classic liberal and for most of my life voted Democrat. As an American Muslim author, I’ve written books about women’s rights and sexual rights, including a book about Tantra, which includes a meditative form of sex. These were adult manifestos with themes of liberation and social justice. This is to say, I am neither a prude nor do I clutch pearls that I do not wear.

Activists Have Hijacked the Kids’ Book Industry and Libraries

But starting in the summer of 2020, I saw books suddenly weaponized to bring activism, age-inappropriate content, and indoctrination into the hands of children whose brains had not yet developed cognitively enough to understand the big words, ideas, and manipulations on the pages in front of them. I became a leader in the movement to draw attention to these books and advocate for parents’ rights. And I watched as organizations I had once supported as neutral caretakers of the well-being and spirit of children—groups like the American Library Association and PEN International—become hijacked by activists ready to ditch the very concept of age-appropriateness in the name of wokeness. And by drawing attention to these issues, we the parents were indulging in “book banning.” 

The problem with that label is that it is a lie. I bought these books to read them myself and, disturbed by the transparent inappropriateness of their messages, I have carried them with me. From the midtown Manhattan studio of journalist John Stossel to the set of CNN in Washington, D.C., and the green room of talk show host Dr. Phil in Los Angeles,  I carry these books with me because you have to see this age-inappropriate content to believe it. I know them by heart. They foment schisms for children before they have even had time to develop their “sense of self,” the critical psychological scaffolding that gives them resilience, balance, and clarity as children and adults.

The Penthouse Standard In K-12 Schools is Commonsense

There’s a reason you don’t find Penthouse or Playboy in the school library though surely many cisgender, heterosexual boys would love to have them as manuals of sexual instruction. How exactly, then, do activists justify books that teach race hate and indulge in pornography at the same time they serve as agents of grooming and state-sponsored indoctrination? This, from the same crowd that cheers when Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Little House on the Prairie are expunged from libraries because they offend modern sensibilities. Or when editors changed the works of Roald Dahl to make them politically correct. 

Next time activists and ideologues cry, “Stop book banning,” they should take a long look in the mirror. And they should leave kids alone. 

Opponents of Book Banning Motivated Not by “Grooming” But to Safeguard Democracy

We appreciate that Ms. Nomani takes pains to assure readers that she is not an extremist when it comes to books, free expression of unpopular ideas, or human sexuality. It is best when people discuss political differences as people rather than as caricatures of their views by their opponents. As for ourselves, we are not Marxist revolutionaries, supporters of Antifa, or members of the “Woke Army” Ms. Nomani describes in her book. We are not leftist activists that “exploit the ideas in ‘critical race theory’” as “a form of cultural Marxism.” Rather, we  wrote a book calling for respectful dialogue and bipartisan compromise as necessary to healing our divided nation, creating an alternative to the hyperpartisan stalemates and standoffs that hamper legislative achievement and problem-solving. 

There is a video in one of Ms. Nomani’s recent Substack posts that purports to show a Virginia mother politely reading from “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and sharing the illustrations that she believes are pornographic with the Fairfax County Public School Board until she is interrupted by a series of board members and prevented from completing her speech. We oppose the rudeness in the video and we regret the interruptions. Although we do not know what provocations preceded the events in the video, we do know that activists can both give and receive verbal abuse, but we would call on all parties to look for non-confrontational solutions. This Virginia mother claims she found the book in her child’s school library. Perhaps she could have discussed her concerns with the librarian to understand the librarian’s position on the book and whether it is assigned reading for any class? Is there a solution that would not force children to read this book against their parents’ wishes, but also not restrict access for students whose parents support freedom of expression? Does “leave kids alone” go in both directions?

Many progressives view book banning with great suspicion because it is so closely associated with authoritarianism throughout human history. In a nation still suffering the traumatic violence of the January 6 th Capitol insurrection, many Americans are taking the view that they must act to safeguard American democracy. Efforts to ban books are fairly or unfairly being opposed by some Americans motivated, not by an agenda to groom children for depravity, but simply to maintain the free flow of ideas in our American democracy. 

Freedom of Speech Does Not Apply When Exposing Minors to Obscenity

President Ronald Reagan formed a Commission to study the serious effects of obscenity and child pornography in the US, and signed legislation isolating child pornography as a criminal offense in 1984. By legal definition, minors are exposed to pornography in K–12 schools and libraries daily. Graphic descriptions of sexual activities are made available to students via Comprehensive Sexuality Education K–12 curriculum and obscenity depicting body parts and sexual behaviors is offered as a means of “safe sex.”

Yet, exemptions to anti-obscenity laws passed by 43 state legislatures make it legal for teachers and librarians to display obscene materials to minors without parental knowledge or consent. Educators have the legal freedom to use materials that would otherwise be illegal if any other adult showed them to another’s child.  For example, Oregon law states that a person convicted of displaying or showing a minor obscene and/or sexually explicit material can be fined up to $10,000 unless the individual is a public school teacher acting in a professional role. Every state’s laws are different. However, until these Obscenity Exemption laws are repealed, it will become impossible to remove legally obscene materials.

Who passed and defended these destructive laws? Sexualizing children is big business, and public schools are the distribution centers. Parents won’t quit defending their rights. It ends here.

Don’t Conflate Book Banning with Age Appropriateness

By Asra Q. Nomani –  Journalist, Education Advocate, and Author of “Woke Army”

Those who claim to champion civil discourse ironically weaponize the term “book banning” to conflate it with the critical and very real issue of age appropriateness. This is particularly true when it comes to dealing with the prickly matters of gender and sexuality and the school library. For starters, parents—not schools, teachers and guidance counselors—are the natural arbiters of the timeline on which such matters are exposed to their children. “New ideas,” as the Rivlins describe them, that may be fine for a sixth grader can be totally inappropriate for a third grader.

The argument that this is really not parents’ business is elitist, wrong, and misguided. The parent-child bond is sacred and the fallout and brunt of inappropriate-age exposure is not felt by the school librarian or principal but on the home front. That’s why a book like “Gender Queer”—with pornographic passages and sexually explicit illustrations—has no place in the middle school library. That parents feel this way doesn’t mean we embrace “book banning.” Parents who may think it appropriate can buy it for their children. Meanwhile, we know for a fact that many of the same so-called progressives who shame parents as “book banners” bowdlerize “Dr. Seuss” books and cast them out of schools because of words and cultural attitudes that don’t conform to their norms. Apparently, they’re in favor of banning certain books and ideas—as long as they can make the rules. 

It is parents who see most clearly what is healthy and age-inappropriate for their babes whom they tuck into bed each night. That is not “authoritarianism,” as the Rivlins state, that is healthy parenting and love.

This debate is being published in collaboration with The Impact Guild , a professional network for people who create, use, or distribute media, arts, or entertainment for social good or healthy democracy.  If you enjoyed this debate, you can read more Political Pen Pal debates here . 

Suzanne Gallagher

Suzanne Gallagher has served as the Director of Parents’ Rights In Education since 2018. Prior to this role, she was a corporate executive, business owner, and president of Oregon Eagle Forum, motivating hundreds of people to attend school board meetings defending parents’ rights. Suzanne has served as a citizen lobbyist in the Oregon state capitol on many issues related to education policy.

Sheri Rivlin and Allan Rivlin

Sheri Rivlin and Allan Rivlin are the CEO and president, respectively, of Zen Political Research, a public opinion, marketing research, and communications strategy consulting firm founded in 2015. They are the son and daughter-in-law of Alice M. Rivlin, and since she passed away in 2019, they have been working to complete her final manuscript, “Divided We Fall, Why Consensus Matters” was published in October 2022 by Brookings Press.

Asra Nomani

Asra Q. Nomani is a senior contributor to The Federalist, senior fellow in the practice of journalism at Independent Women's Network, and and former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. A former professor of journalism at Georgetown University, she leads the Pearl Project, which investigated the murder of her colleague and friend, Daniel Pearl. She is author of “Woke Army: The Red-Green Alliance That Is Destroying America's Freedom" and "Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam." She is cofounder of the Coalition for TJ, advocating for parent's rights in education.

Yeah but personally, I like the standard where if the book can’t be read in its entirety at a school board meeting, it flat out shouldn’t be in a school library. I absolutely support banning books from the public school system which don’t meet that standard. Not everything which gets published has value, and given that the funds used to purchase these books come from the public purse, we should be taking a _very_ conservative standpoint on content fit for the public. If people want more questionable materials, let them buy those items themselves and host their own private libraries for those materials.

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Over 1,600 Books Were Banned During the Past School Year

A new PEN America report finds that targeted campaigns by advocacy groups are behind the increasing bans

Ella Feldman

Daily Correspondent

It’s  Banned Books Week , an annual campaign that began in 1982 to celebrate the  First Amendment and encourage the protection of controversial materials. But now, four decades later, book bans are on the rise, according to a new report from the free speech nonprofit PEN America .

Between July 2021 and June 2022, the report— Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools —found 2,532 instances of individual bans, which covered 1,648 unique books. PEN America tracks the bans in a public spreadsheet , which indicates that the most-banned book is Maia Kobabe ’s  Gender Queer: A Memoir .

The bans took place in 138 school districts across 32 states; in total, those school districts enroll nearly 4 million students. (These numbers only account for the bans that PEN America was able to track, and the organization says that more likely exist.) The report found that 96 percent of the bans did not follow the best practice guidelines for book challenges outlined by the  American Library Association  (ALA) and the  National Coalition Against Censorship .

About 41 percent of the banned titles explicitly address LGBTQ themes, making these the biggest target of the bans. Books involving sexual content—such as stories about teen pregnancy, sexual assault and abortion—account for 22 percent of the titles. About 21 percent directly address race and racism, while 40 percent feature major characters of color.

The team behind Banned in the USA wanted to determine where book bans originated. They found that in many instances, the bans were the calculated result of work by advocacy groups.

“[T]he large majority of book bans underway today are not spontaneous, organic expressions of citizen concern,” the report states. “Rather, they reflect the work of a growing number of advocacy organizations that have made demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in schools part of their mission.”

PEN America identified 50 groups, some with hundreds of regional chapters, pushing for book bans across the country. The majority of those groups—73 percent—have formed since 2021. 

“These groups probably do not necessarily represent a range of beliefs from our democracy,” PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman, one of the report’s authors, tells Education Week ’s Eesha Pendharkar. “So they’re having an outsized impact in a lot of places on what it is that everybody gets to read.”

Such groups have played a hand in many of the book bans that took place over the last school year; 20 percent of bans can be directly linked to their work, while they appear to have influenced an additional 30 percent. 

“This is a concerted, organized, well-resourced push at censorship,” Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America, tells the  New York Times ’ Elizabeth A. Harris. “[The effort] is ideologically motivated and politically expedient, and it needs to be understood as such in order to be confronted and addressed properly.”

Last week, the ALA  released its own report , which examines book bans since the beginning of 2022, and found a similar increase in bans.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, tells Hillel Italie of the  Associated Press (AP). “It’s both the number of challenges and the kinds of challenges. It used to be a parent had learned about a given book and had an issue with it. Now we see campaigns where organizations are compiling lists of books, without necessarily reading or even looking at them.”

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Ella Feldman | READ MORE

Ella Malena Feldman is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C. She examines art, culture and gender in her work, which has appeared in Washington City Paper , DCist and the Austin American-Statesman .

Peter DeWitt's

Finding common ground.

A former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and leadership coach, DeWitt provides insights and advice for education leaders. He can be found at www.petermdewitt.com . Read more from this blog .

Banning Books Is Not About Protecting Children. It’s About Discrimination Against Others

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In a recent article focusing on collaboration and developing collective efficacy , Katz and Donohoo write,

Collaboration is an essential ingredient of quality implementation, as it is for most high-quality professional learning. But while collaboration sounds easy, it is anything but. It’s not difficult to put a group of people together, but how do you ensure that being together adds value? And how do you avoid getting mired in conflicts and contradictions?

Katz and Donohoo’s questions are important ones. Our collaborative work should add value. Unfortunately, in conversations with teachers and school building and district leaders, it is apparent that there are numerous conflicts they are experiencing which prevent deep collaboration , and it’s not just due to COVID. It’s actually due to politics and the infiltration of right-wing conservative thinking in our public school system.

Lately, there have been numerous news stories about parents who want to ban books. In a recent story on NBC News , they reported more than 50 percent of the books being banned center around an LGBTQ character and children of color. Coincidence that book-banning is around LGBTQ characters or characters of color? Probably not.

In fact, Harris and Alter write ,

Parents, activists, school board officials and lawmakers around the country are challenging books at a pace not seen in decades. The American Library Association said, “In a preliminary report that it received an “unprecedented” 330 reports of book challenges, each of which can include multiple books, last fall.”

Isn’t it interesting, or rather infuriating, that in the very place that students should be engaged in challenges to their own thinking in order to grow as learners, these people are actively making sure that schools are not able to create opportunities for that thinking? Isn’t it interesting that some of the very groups who yell so loudly about cancel culture are the same people trying to cancel discussions about ideas that come to us through books? If Katz and Donohoo are correct about collaboration and conversation, which they are, where is the added value in banning books?

Pornography Is an Intentional Word

The dumbing down of America isn’t due to watered-down curriculum as much as it is the direct result of parents, leaders, and teachers who choose to ban books because, somehow, they don’t agree with what is written within those books.

In an effort to undermine the quality of the books, governors like Greg Abbot of Texas calls them pornographic . Although I would love to say that Abbott chose his words incorrectly, the reality is that he intentionally chose that word to get parents in his state up in arms. I wonder how many of the books being banned have actually been read by the parents trying to ban them.

Sure, they can read a passage at a board meeting, but have they actually read the whole book?

The interesting thing about reading is that it is supposed to expand our ideas and thoughts, not coincide with our confirmation bias. Books are supposed to inspire us to engage in debate and an exchange of ideas, but too many of these states that are banning books would rather censor the freedom of thought. What are they so afraid of? Isn’t it funny that so many of these parents want to unmask their children at the same time they force a mask on their child’s ability to choose a book for themselves? And they certainly seem to mask what this banning is all about, which is pushing institutional racism in their schools.

This Is Not New

The reality is that this issue is not new. People have been trying to ban books for as long as we have been a country. The sad, and often hidden side of all this is when librarians feel the pressure to self-censor the books made available in a library. They do not feel they will be supported by their principals, so they choose to not purchase books for their libraries that may make waves.

In fact, in this article published by the American Library Association (ALA), Asheim writes ,

But many librarians have been known to defer to anticipated pressures, and to avoid facing issues by suppressing possible issue-making causes. In such cases, the rejection of a book is censorship, for the book has been judged—not on its own merits—but in terms of the librarian’s devotion to three square meals a day. Do not misunderstand me—I am as devoted as any to the delights of the table and a roof against the rain. But these considerations should not be mistaken for literary criteria, and it is with the latter that the librarian-as-selector is properly concerned.

As you can see, censorship has many forms, and it’s not just about the seedy instances you hear while watching the nightly news.

Representation Matters … Even If It Makes You Uncomfortable

Many years ago, Albert Bandura began researching self-efficacy, which is the belief we feel in our own abilities. Self-efficacy is context specific, which means we all have areas where we feel confident and areas where we don’t.

What Bandura found in 2000 is that leaders who feel efficacious double their efforts, but those who do not feel efficacious slacken their efforts. What this means is that when leaders, and in this case parents, feel uncomfortable, they will try to stay away from the conversation as much as possible. This is unfortunate, because the only way to become more comfortable is to engage in conversations that help build understanding.

So many people seem to be running away from the very conversations that we should be running toward. But they probably know that already. They don’t want to understand it, nor do they want their children to understand it, which is why they want to ban it. Whether we are conservative, liberal or somewhere in between, we should see representation in the books offered at school. If we are Black, brown or gay, we should see ourselves represented in books. It’s our choice whether we want to check them out or not.

Book banning is a weak response to ideas that scare us. Are the people banning books the same ones that yell from the rooftops that there should be less government involvement in decision making, and yet they want to ban books for others without giving those people a chance to choose for themselves? In states where books are being banned, there should be more and more people who are speaking up against censorship. Kats and Donohoo are right that collaboration within schools is difficult and sometimes complicated. It seems that collaboration within school communities is probably even more complicated.

All in all, the sad reality of all this is that censorship and book banning will definitely work. Too many teachers and leaders do not feel efficacious enough to speak up against these loud censoring parents because they love their jobs and students too much to risk losing their job and students. At some point, though, oppression and ignorance should not be allowed to win this battle.

The opinions expressed in Peter DeWitt’s Finding Common Ground are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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16 Major Pros and Cons of Banning Books in Schools

Banning books is one of the most common forms of censorship that exists in the world today. Banned Books Week began in 1982 to highlight the issues that surround this issue. Since the start of this event, there have been over 11,000 different titles challenged. The vast majority of the reading materials that receive challenges come from parents who disagree with a title’s inclusion on a curriculum list.

Public libraries, universities, K-12 schools, and businesses all over the country see attempts to ban books frequently. The National Coalition Against Censorship reports that there is at least one attempt per week to create censorship over a specific title. The subject matter that gets targeted with the banning process ranges from classics to contemporary best-sellers. You’ll even find biographical non-fiction and fairy tales included on these lists.

Most challenges never result in a ban because students, families, teachers, and librarians take a stand against the censorship. When books do receive a ban, it is usually because there are racial themes involved, an alternative lifestyle portrayed, or violence and sex that makes people uncomfortable.

List of the Pros of Banning Books

1. Parents should have the right to what materials their children can read. Parents are the final line of defense when it comes to protecting their children from inappropriate material for their age group. A book with an adult topic may be entirely enjoyable when people of the correct age have a chance to read and discuss the narrative. That content may not be well-suited to a child’s audience. Waiting until a child is mature enough to understand what vulgar, obscene language, and explicit sexual content is often necessary to promote healthy development.

If this material is available in public or school libraries, then parents might not even know that their kids were exposed to this material. Other students might still talk about the book, but those discussions are very different than applying the narrative in a real-world way.

2. There might be inappropriate content for certain families. 40% of the most challenged books in 2017 contained explicit violence. That is the same percentage that also contained material from the LGBTQIA+ community. 30% of the books were sexually explicit with their descriptions. When students receive exposure to graphic materials, then there can be adverse psychological effects that occur afterward. This issue may lead to more casual sexual partners, having sexual contact at an earlier age, and sensitivity issues.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that children who receive exposure to violence in books at an early age can encourage them to act with more aggression. Proponents of banning books say that their goal isn’t to shelter a child from specific content. It is a matter of guiding them toward what is healthy for them to encounter.

3. Banning books from one forum doesn’t eliminate the ability to access content. Banning books in the past was an effective way to keep unwanted materials out of someone’s hands because there were very few communications tools available to society. The world is a very different place in 2019. If parents want their public library to ban a book, then it could be made available online for reading. There are still places to purchase the book as well. No one is preventing them from being written or sold. What some people call “book banning” is more of a responsible choice about what to make available to other people.

4. It gives parents an opportunity to discuss challenging topics with children. Parents want the chance to speak with their kids about subject matters that make many people uncomfortable instead of letting an author shape the narrative with a personal opinion. Reading Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is an excellent example of this potential advantage of banning books. Dealing with topics like murder and euthanasia may go beyond the understanding of some young children. Other books deal with suicide, peer pressure, and death on a large scale.

Approving books for a school curriculum without parental guidance may shape the perspective of a child without having a chance to form their own opinion. Stopping access at the community level can help kids to get both sides of the conversation.

5. Banned books could stop people from being inspired to take adverse actions. The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, has had a lasting influence on society. It continues to be a best-selling book, but it is also one of the most frequently banned titles that people challenge. It has also been the inspiration for several shootings over the year. When John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, this book was in his collection at the hotel.

Robert John Bardo was carrying the book when he murdered Rebecca Schaeffer. Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon, identified with the narrator to the extent that he wanted to change his name to Holden Caulfield. Chapman even read a portion of the book during his sentencing hearing.

6. Censorship can reduce the impact of hate speech. Proponents of banning books say that the act of censorship isn’t a process that is supposed to ban all speech. Hate speech isn’t created equal. The words that some people use to create feelings of personal superiority are damaging. Even when a narrative tries to cloak this issue in righteousness, the potential adverse impact of student exposure could create numerous problems for schools, families, and students. Banning the book before it can inspire hate allows us to reduce the impact of this language in our society.

You can also reduce the amount of conflict that occurs between two people or parties. Limiting information access doesn’t stop someone from producing work. It allows people who don’t want to receive exposure to a specific concept to have an easier way to avoid it.

7. The rights of the creator are still protected even if books are banned. No one is stopping an author from writing a book that some people might find to be offensive. Even if the response to a narrative is generally negative, there is always an opportunity to create something else. Although critics can make a valid argument about the fact that the act of banning can impact the income of the writer, there are still specific markets where the works may be found to be acceptable.

List of the Cons of Banning Books

1. It takes the book away from someone who wants to read it. The idea of the First Amendment is pretty simple: if you don’t like something, then you don’t need to read the book in the first place. Prohibiting the expression of an idea because society finds it to be disagreeable or offensive goes against the wish of the Founding Father. A single disagreement from an individual or a widespread dispute shouldn’t stop others from getting the opportunity to read a book that intrigues them. The role of banning should stay at the family level.

If you as a parent or guardian feel like the material is inappropriate, then it is up to you to look for an alternative solution. It’s not the children who typically need safeguarding either; it’s the books that receive targeting.

2. It creates a false sense of reality for children. The reality of language, sex, and violence in literature is that most people receive exposure to these elements much earlier in life than a junior-level lit class in high school. Kids learn to swear much earlier in life – and probably know all of the “bad” words even if you don’t realize it. Violence in literature is not limited to stories like The Hunger Games. Even the Harry Potter series has moments of violence in it, despite the fact that many people celebrate the stories.

When there is an action taken to ban books, then this behavior is a reflection of having a closed mind. It speaks to the idea that there is one perspective that holds truth in our world. If your opinion falls outside of that thought, then too bad – your literature is going to be withheld from everyone, like it or not.

3. Books are some of our best teachers. Books allow us to put the stories of life into their proper context. The narrative teaches us how to speak from an early age. We can learn some of our social skills from the process of reading. It can even be a way to engage new ways to think. The latter issue is usually why people want to bank books in the first place. People often fear the unknown, which means reading something that feels uncomfortable is a threat which needs to be stopped.

The reality of books is that they are our best teachers. There’s a reason why the titles like Brave New World or To Kill a Mockingbird tend to be the ones that instructors choose for their classes repetitively. Instead of constantly challenging these titles by trying to ban them, it might be more useful to have a sit, grab a cocktail, and read the book one one’s own before trying to stop others.

4. Many banned books become celebrated classics of literature. Almost all of the classics that we read in various literature classes say something that the human race needs to hear. Even the Library of Congress has put together lists of titles that have helped to shape our heritage, each one offering something unique with extraordinary merit. These stories are already designed to confront the various issues of their time, including moral, social, and political problems. Trying to ban the book will not prevent the idea from being unleashed on the rest of the culture. If anything, the act of banning a book creates more of an urge in the general public to read the narrative instead of ignoring it.

5. Books have the capability of changing the world. There are some books that people have read that have changed their life. Many people can remember where they were when they read the Diary of Anne Frank – and that’s one example of many. Books gives us the chance to confront our problems instead of running away from them by watching the TV or making ourselves so busy that we don’t take time to enjoy a creative narrative.

When there is a restriction of free thought, then we encounter the most dangerous subversion of all. From an American perspective, the idea that one offended person can stop everyone else from enjoying the right to read is about as un-American as it gets.

6. It prevents the exploration process of others. Challenged books contain themes that are designed to be challenging to the average reader. The goal of the narrative is to make you think when you’re reading the book. You want to know the reasons why characters choose to take the actions that happen. Readers want the chance to question, explore, or even be offended by what they encounter in the narrative. Could this be a bad thing? Critics say that even the decision to act violently is a personal choice that occurs instead of being something that the book inspires.

7. Many efforts to ban books involve personal opinions instead of facts. In 1983, the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for the banning of Anne Frank because the book was a “downer.” There have been efforts where parents have been considered that there are sexually offensive passages in this young girl’s diary. Although there may be passages in books that may be explicit, there are times when the real world functions the same way. When someone decides to take a gun to a mall to commit a mass shooting, that behavior is a response to specific stimuli. We must look beyond the action to the bigger picture to understand what is happening.

Instead of getting lost in the small moments of a passage, we must take a look at the entire story as a whole. Even controversial books can foster important learning opportunities for many of today’s teens. People tend to make the correct decision if you give them a chance to review all of their options. Banning books stops that process.

8. Tastes and preferences change over the years. Fox’s TV show The Simpsons is an excellent example of how society changes over the years. When it was first introduced in the 1980s, most evangelicals set the content aside, encouraging others on the further right to avoid it altogether because it was in-your-face. Even First Lady Barbara Bush once called the cartoon “dumb.” Then the attitudes began to change in the early 1990s. There were Bible studies developed to complement the series. People began turning the corner to enjoy their new yellow friends on television.

Banning books, like most forms of criticism, tends to be a knee-jerk reaction to an emotional response. When people take the time to review the content that a narrative contains, then there is always something to be taken from it. Some people don’t like The Simpsons because it is animated, which means it targets their children. It may not always be that way.

9. Banning a book causes kids to crave the narrative. Kids want to read books that are realistic. When a narrative is timely and topical, then it has an excellent chance of experiencing a successful experience. Many of the banned books have characters going through circumstances that are similar to what they have in their life at that moment. If you ban that material, then the kids (especially teens) are going to go out of their way to get their hands on the product anyway.

There are some uncomfortable issues that many people might not want to address when they pick up something controversial. The characters might be managing problems with sexual assault, divorce, or prejudice. A great example of this issue is the book called The Outsiders. It is banned in many middle schools, but this narrative is also one of the most-cited books that students say turned them onto reading.

Verdict of the Pros and Cons of Banning Books

The American Library Association tracks book challenges each year. Their data goes back to 1990. In 2017, there were 354 book challenges reported in the United States, which was a 9.6% increase from the figures that were filed in the year before. In most years, about 10% of the reported challenges result in a ban or removal from the institution in question. In 2016, half of the top ten most challenge books were removed.

Parents are responsible for one-third of the challenges that occur to books. 56% of the incidents occur at public libraries. Students are responsible for only 1% of the banning requests that occur each year.

The top three reasons for a removal request are for offensive language, a narrative “unsuited” to any age group, or content that’s sexually explicit. When we look at the pros and cons of banning books, we must take a common-sense approach to the subject. Isn’t it interesting that society has concerns about how people will behave after reading a book, but they don’t share that perspective when it comes to something like gun ownership.

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Why books should never be banned

Francesca Divincenzo , Staff Writer November 10, 2021

All over the world and even in the United States, certain pieces of literature are being banned such as “Harry Potter,” “Of Mice and Men” and “Perks of Being a Wallflower.”According to an LA Times Article, in a Virginia governor’s race, politicians have been campaigning for a proposed book ban in their Virginia Beach schools. They engage their constituents by whipping up a moral panic over public education while stoking the fires of race-related fears. In fact, using these fears to ban books from schools has become a more popular tactic in elections across the country.

I honestly believe that politicians use banned books as a topic to fire parents up (relating to their personal beliefs). It is basically a fear tactic.According to the Everyday Health Group, a child who is not educated on certain topics will learn information “in the school yard” rather than from a book that could answer all the questions the child has. Parents are supposed to be a child’s fiercest advocate, but they can also act as a roadblock in learning because they are afraid that if their kids have more information and facts, they could potentially lose control. This is wrong because it may hurt their child in the long run. For example, in the Virginia Beach school situation, backers and the parents who support the book ban describe the books as “abhorrent” and “pornographic.” One parent even claimed at a school board meeting that the books “groom” young people for sexual predators.

Books do not groom children for sex predators, if anything books prevent this because books can teach lessons that can empower children with knowledge on topics such as consent. Thus, prevent this from happening. The school board refuted the proponents’ arguments and I agree with them because banning books for your child may seem like it only affects your kid, but it does not. The above scenario is similar to that of a classroom group punishment.Although parents are just trying to shield their children from the evil of this world, in the long run this has the potential to hurt them at the same time. Books help people in so many ways. Personally, I never really started reading until I read the “Harry Potter” books by J.K. Rowling. Her series acted as an escape for me from the world and other books can serve this purpose for many others.

Kids often face bullying, academic struggles, social anxiety and more troubles in their childhood, but reading and the world of books can give people the opportunity for escape when there are no other options to do so in real life. Banned books often deal with hard realistic topics such as grief, divorce, sexual assault and bullying. Many, including myself, have taken comfort in knowing characters from stories that often feel the same way too. Overall, banning books is wrong for keeping children from the truth, using it as a fear tactic and giving the child no escape from the harsh realities of life.

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robert • Dec 15, 2022 at 11:00 am

Bills targeting book bans raise concerns about the penalties libraries could face

Bills against book bans are gaining traction in state legislatures around the country — and with them have come worries about the potentially negative impact on libraries themselves.

The number of banned books across the country saw an almost two-thirds increase in 2023 from the previous year, to more than 4,200 titles, according to a new report from the American Library Association . The free speech advocacy group PEN America found that last school year, about 30% of the book titles being challenged in schools included characters of color or discussed race and racism, while another 30% presented LGBTQ characters or themes. In addition, almost half the banned books featured themes or instances of violence or physical abuse, and a third contained writing on sexual experiences between characters.

The rise in book bans has prompted lawmakers to push back with bills in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico. They follow Illinois and California, where such legislation has been signed into law.

Experts are raising concerns, however, as some of the legislation would fine school districts or withhold library funding if their provisions are not followed, such as in Illinois and California. The enforcement measures could especially be a threat to public schools and libraries that are underfunded and understaffed, they say.

“It always is a concern when you put funding on the line for any reason,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

“We would not want to see bills that are overly prescriptive that make it difficult for smaller communities or rural communities to receive their funding."

She added, "Our big concern is not creating a system that would make it so onerous to comply with the bill that it makes it difficult for libraries with fewer resources."

Budgetary constraints also can give rise to circumstances that could be misread as violations of state laws, experts say. For example, titles may be removed or go missing from the shelves of schools or public libraries when the books are damaged or lost or there’s no money in the budget to purchase them. Personnel shortages also can prevent libraries from staffing panels that review books or instructional materials for approval or disapproval. Some experts argued that such problems could be unfairly weaponized against schools or public libraries, which have experienced increased criticism and scrutiny as part of the growing movement to ban books.

Illinois’ new law requires that state libraries adopt the American Library Association’s long-standing Library Bill of Rights, which says that reading materials cannot be banned, removed or restricted due to "partisan or doctrinal disapproval," or, alternatively, a similar statement prohibiting the banning of books. If public libraries don’t adopt such guidelines, they become ineligible for state grant money, which makes up a substantial part of their budgets.

When asked about the concerns over the law, Illinois state Sen. Laura Murphy, a Democrat who co-sponsored the measure, said in a statement to NBC News that by adding the threat to funding to the legislation, lawmakers were "intentional in establishing a mechanism to hold libraries accountable and sending a clear message that there would be a recourse for those who seek to ban books."

She added that the law's enforcement gave it more of a backbone and was a way to "further demonstrate our support for librarians” who back efforts to keep an inclusive range of book titles available.

Emily Knox, an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that she believes connecting funding to Illinois’ bill is necessary for its effectiveness.

“That’s what gives the bill any teeth at all,” she said. “Libraries and schools need more money, but because funding is so precious to public institutions, you don’t want to do things that jeopardize the possibility of getting funding from a source like the state. So it does make a big difference.”

Knox said claims that the funding could be weaponized against libraries in the state if they are targeted for not having certain titles on the shelf are inaccurate based on the wording of the legislation.

“The bill says that [libraries] have to support the ALA Bill of Rights and have a process in place for reconsidering books. It doesn’t say what the outcome of that process is,” she said.

Since the Illinois bill just mandates the policy to taken up by libraries, rather than specifying what specific books should or shouldn't be on the shelves, libraries can’t be targeted for lacking book titles, Knox said.

And the law is already proving effective, she said, noting that the director of the public library in Metropolis, Illinois, was dismissed last month in part for challenging the library board’s decision to conform to the state’s law and adopt the ALA Bill of Rights, which the board said was necessary to do in order to receive state grants that the library needs.

California’s law focuses on penalizing school districts if books are determined to have been rejected from their library shelves for discriminatory reasons, which would result in financial penalties from the state Education Department. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the law aims to protect access to books which “reflect the diverse experiences and perspectives of Californians.”

Caldwell-Stone warned that in a national environment in which librarians face growing criticism about the types of books they provide, laws against book bans must consider the potential pitfalls and burdens on library staff.

Some state lawmakers have reconsidered the inclusion of financial penalties for libraries in their bills amid the fears of unintended consequences. In New Jersey, legislators dropped that language from their bill after librarians expressed concerns.

State Sen. Andrew Zwicker, a Democrat who sponsored the b ill , said that he grew concerned about the potential impact of such penalties after hearing from several librarians about the criticism and scrutiny they've received amid the increasing challenges to various book titles.

Washington and Oregon have advanced legislation against book bans that focus on school districts, but neither includes fines like California's law. Washington’s bill is waiting for Gov. Jay Inslee’s expected signature, and Oregon’s measure has been passed by the state Senate.

Both bills would prohibit the exclusion of instructional materials for including information on the role or contributions of individuals and groups protected from discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation and other characteristics.

Washington state Rep. Monica Stonier and Oregon state Sen. Lew Frederick, Democrats who introduced their respective bills, explained that their measures would simply enact vetting processes for books that are already being used in school districts across the state, unifying those district protocols while adding anti-discriminatory protections.

Lawmakers in support of the laws in Washington and Oregon say that they plan to see how California’s enforcement provisions play out before considering adding a fine to their bills.

“We already have a way to do this, there doesn’t seem to be a need to set up another one,” Frederick said. “I think this is a simple approach because it just says you can’t discriminate."

Kyla Guilfoil is an intern for NBC News Digital Politics.

​​When We Ban Books, We Severely Restrict Children’s Ability To Learn About Different People and Themselves

• Ash Beckham , LGBTQ+ advocate, activist, and leadership and diversity speaker
• Elanna Yalow, PhD , educational psychologist and chief academic officer at KinderCare Education

News of libraries and schools banning books—which does seem to happen on a near annual basis—often tends to garner headlines; however, the current landscape of book-banning feels perhaps more alarming than in past instances. In a November 2021 press release from the American Library Association (ALA) stating its opposition to censorship of books in libraries and schools, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director for the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF), called the volume of challenges to books the ALA had fielded in the fall season of 2021 "unprecedented." “In my 20 years with ALA, I can’t recall a time when we had multiple challenges coming in on a daily basis,” she said.

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Since that ALA statement, a bill was introduced in Oklahoma to keep books about sex, sexual identity, or gender identity out of public school libraries. And even more recently, a Tennessee county school board voted to remove Maus , Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from the eighth-grade curriculum, citing the work's use of "objectionable language" and "disturbing imagery." (Again, it bears reiterating, the book is about the Holocaust .)

When we ban books, we compromise children’s education and development. Books “foster development physically, socially, and emotionally,” says Ash Beckham , an LGBTQ+ advocate, activist, and leadership and diversity speaker. “Books can give children a glimpse of the world far beyond the one they actually see every day. They not only show us what is possible, but they challenge us to rethink what we know and therefore what we imagine is possible.”

"Books that represent people and situations that are drastically different from anything [children have] ever known can trigger empathy." —Tara Keeley, elementary school teacher

By opening kids up to people, places, and cultures worldwide, books help kids develop empathy for others. “Children, by nature, start out very self-focused, so it can be hard for them to imagine lives and experiences outside of their own,” says Tara Keeley, a New York City-based elementary school teacher with the city’s Department of Education. “Books that represent people and situations that are drastically different from anything they’ve ever known can trigger empathy [because] there are universal human experiences, like joy, grief, disappointment, shame.”

A 2014 study of elementary and high school students in Italy and the United Kingdom found that children became more empathetic toward LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and refugees after reading Harry Potter , a story of a child who is different than his peers. “As human beings, we develop fear and anxiety around the things we don’t know or understand,” says Elanna Yalow, PhD , educational psychologist and Chief Academic Officer at KinderCare Education . “By the time children are two years old, they will naturally gravitate toward people who are familiar to them and can be hesitant around people who don’t look like someone they know.” Books can be a gateway for fostering acceptance, empathy, and appreciation for others.

And just as there's value in providing insight into situations readers might not otherwise consider, books can also provide representation to children who come from or identify with marginalized communities. This highlights why educators often talk about books in the classroom serving two purposes: some are “mirrors,” while others are “windows.”

“‘Mirrors’ are books in which readers see themselves representing meaningfully,” says Keeley. "’Windows’ are books that can show the reader the perspective and experiences different from their own. We all need and deserve to have access to both types of books; banning books that center marginalized people and deal with difficult topics shuts those windows and smashes those mirrors."

For example, Keeley says that she remembers reading Chris Crutcher’s books —which largely focus on teens navigating struggles like racism, injustice, disability, and abuse—for the first time in middle school, which left her feeling as though someone might understand her experiences and her trauma. “It helped me put words to thoughts and feelings I’d previously been unable to articulate.” To her, that a number of Crutcher’s books ended up on banned-book lists only highlights the hindrance the action has on helping kids find literary “mirrors” and “windows” that both boost their self-esteem and empathy for others.

That’s why Maus and Maus II have long been part of Keeley’s classroom library. “The way Spiegelman wrote it as a young man interviewing his elderly father about having lived through the Holocaust allows us to see both the atrocities that were committed as well as the impact it had on him for the rest of his life,” she says. “Many students have experienced discrimination or being othered. They can connect the prejudice and wrongdoings in Maus to what we’ve learned about slavery and legalized discrimination in the United States, the attacks against Asian-Americans during COVID , and even less brutal but still harmful attitudes and acts they’ve learned of or experienced firsthand.”

Esperanza Rising —a book about a girl who moved with her mother from Mexico to South Carolina during the Great Depression, which was challenged in 2015 by parents in North Carolina who claimed its themes to be inappropriate—is also part of her library: “It tackles topics of loss of a family member, immigration , racism, how different marginalized groups can be pinned against one another to the benefit of white supremacy.”

Banning books can stunt children's curiosity about the world and other people, which is why Keeley believes schools have the opportunity and responsibility to serve as a resource center and sanctuary for students. “Many of them don’t have the resources one way or another to buy books or search for them at the public library and you can’t really look for that which you don’t know about,” she says.

Furthermore, exposing children to books that serve as “windows” and “mirrors” encourages them to seek out more on their own so they can keep reading and learning about themselves, others, history, and the world outside their home—even if some of the words and themes they may learn in books bring up difficult or uncomfortable topics. “What do we achieve by insulating our kids from uncomfortable truths?” Beckham asks. “Likely, they will learn them eventually and if they don’t, then we have failed in our responsibility as parents [and educators]. The truth can be hard.”

• Vezzali, Loris et al. “The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology , 2014, https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12279.

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James Patterson: If Florida bans my books, 'no kids under 12 should go to Marvel movies'

As the culture wars rage, books increasingly are on the front line. 

Across the country, local, state and some national officials are moving to ban certain titles on the grounds that books tackling racism, sexuality and gender identity pose a threat to younger readers. And some librarians and teachers who push back against such bans have faced harassment and dismissal. 

Many of these allegedly controversial books are familiar school staples written by long-dead authors such as "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger and "Beloved" by Toni Morrison.

But this week, best-selling author James Patterson was pulled into the fray when school district officials in Martin County, Florida, removed his young adult series " Maximum Ride " from its elementary school library but kept it accessible for older students. The book follows the adventures of friends who are winged human-avian hybrids.

Patterson tweeted about the incident Monday, urging fans who found "mindless book banning troubling or confusing" to write to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been aggressively waging the culture war. We caught up with Patterson Wednesday, who expanded on his concerns.

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

"The Angel Experiment: A Maximum Ride Novel" at Bookshop for $10.22

Question: Martin County did not ban "Maximum Ride" but instead has removed access for elementary school students. What do you make of the distinction? 

Answer: It’s a distinction with some merit but not a lot, because it’s not a book anyone should be taking out of elementary schools. There’s nothing in that book that should scare anyone. Kids who are into science and math love it, because I talked to scientists for it about whether you can put wings on kids, which is kind of fun.

If you are going to ban this book, then no kids under 12 should go to any Marvel movies.

Have Martin County school officials reached out to you?

No they haven’t. The troubling thing is the school district is making decisions about books. Individuals that haven’t read the book. If based on one person’s objection you take books off shelves, then we’re going in the wrong direction.

The only time I was banned was for "The Jericho Commandment" (a 1979 novel about terrorists at the 1980 Moscow Olympics), and that was banned in Russia. So that’s ironic.

You've mentioned this is personal for you. How so?

A lot of people talk the talk, but I do (stuff). I’ve spent 40 years funding teacher libraries. My mother was a teacher in Catholic schools. She paid for her own classroom library. But I’ve been funding independent libraries, hundreds of teacher scholarships, and I have an imprint for children.

But I also happen to own a house in Martin County. I bought it for one of my sisters there. And my niece has kids going to school in Martin County. So yes, that makes it a little personal.

You live nearby in Palm Beach County. Would you consider speaking directly to Martin County school board officials?

I almost went up there, and if the book had been totally banned, I would have.

But if I did speak to them, I'd say look, absolutely it’s important for you to keep your kids safe, and you should do a better job at that. If a book comes into your home with your child, ask them: 'What’s it about? Are you enjoying it? Oh, you’re having nightmares, let’s talk about it.' But there are far scarier things on the internet than there are in libraries.

Can authors targeted by bans make a difference in this heated debate?

There certainly needs to be teeth in the response to this. If this continues, school boards will face lawsuits from publishers, from authors. And we’ll go right after the people on the school boards.

Because you just can’t go out there and make irresponsible decisions. These folks need to read the books, find out about the books, and in the rare case that there is something so incredibly objectionable, I suppose maybe then you react.

What's your worstcase scenario for a nation that continues to ban books?

You’ll have a country of people with no sense of history or ideas. None, zero.

One of the wonderful things about books is it allows us to find out about different ways of thinking, of living, different problems people have, different ways of finding joy. You can explain a world through a library and that’s a good thing. To cut that down is not useful.

Purchases you make through our links may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.

Keep reading:

Book bans are on the rise. What are the most banned books and why?

It's part of a 'full-fledged' movement: Schools banned books 2,532 times since 2021

U.S. banned books authors speak up: 'We can’t take these freedoms for granted'

'A chilling effect':   What happens to our culture when books are banned

Banned Books Week is here: Here’s how to read or listen to your favorite challenged books

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The Supreme Court Got It Wrong: Abortion Is Not Settled Law

By Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw

Ms. Murray is a law professor at New York University. Ms. Shaw is a contributing Opinion writer.

In his majority opinion in the case overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito insisted that the high court was finally settling the vexed abortion debate by returning the “authority to regulate abortion” to the “people and their elected representatives.”

Despite these assurances, less than two years after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abortion is back at the Supreme Court. In the next month, the justices will hear arguments in two high-stakes cases that may shape the future of access to medication abortion and to lifesaving care for pregnancy emergencies. These cases make clear that Dobbs did not settle the question of abortion in America — instead, it generated a new slate of questions. One of those questions involves the interaction of existing legal rules with the concept of fetal personhood — the view, held by many in the anti-abortion movement, that a fetus is a person entitled to the same rights and protections as any other person.

The first case , scheduled for argument on Tuesday, F.D.A. v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, is a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s protocols for approving and regulating mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for medication abortions. An anti-abortion physicians’ group argues that the F.D.A. acted unlawfully when it relaxed existing restrictions on the use and distribution of mifepristone in 2016 and 2021. In 2016, the agency implemented changes that allowed the use of mifepristone up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, rather than seven; reduced the number of required in-person visits for dispensing the drug from three to one; and allowed the drug to be prescribed by individuals like nurse practitioners. In 2021, it eliminated the in-person visit requirement, clearing the way for the drug to be dispensed by mail. The physicians’ group has urged the court to throw out those regulations and reinstate the previous, more restrictive regulations surrounding the drug — a ruling that could affect access to the drug in every state, regardless of the state’s abortion politics.

The second case, scheduled for argument on April 24, involves the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA ), which requires federally funded hospitals to provide patients, including pregnant patients, with stabilizing care or transfer to a hospital that can provide such care. At issue is the law’s interaction with state laws that severely restrict abortion, like an Idaho law that bans abortion except in cases of rape or incest and circumstances where abortion is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”

Although the Idaho law limits the provision of abortion care to circumstances where death is imminent, the federal government argues that under EMTALA and basic principles of federal supremacy, pregnant patients experiencing emergencies at federally funded hospitals in Idaho are entitled to abortion care, even if they are not in danger of imminent death.

These cases may be framed in the technical jargon of administrative law and federal pre-emption doctrine, but both cases involve incredibly high-stakes issues for the lives and health of pregnant persons — and offer the court an opportunity to shape the landscape of abortion access in the post-Roe era.

These two cases may also give the court a chance to seed new ground for fetal personhood. Woven throughout both cases are arguments that gesture toward the view that a fetus is a person.

If that is the case, the legal rules that would typically hold sway in these cases might not apply. If these questions must account for the rights and entitlements of the fetus, the entire calculus is upended.

In this new scenario, the issue is not simply whether EMTALA’s protections for pregnant patients pre-empt Idaho’s abortion ban, but rather which set of interests — the patient’s or the fetus’s — should be prioritized in the contest between state and federal law. Likewise, the analysis of F.D.A. regulatory protocols is entirely different if one of the arguments is that the drug to be regulated may be used to end a life.

Neither case presents the justices with a clear opportunity to endorse the notion of fetal personhood — but such claims are lurking beneath the surface. The Idaho abortion ban is called the Defense of Life Act, and in its first bill introduced in 2024, the Idaho Legislature proposed replacing the term “fetus” with “preborn child” in existing Idaho law. In its briefs before the court, Idaho continues to beat the drum of fetal personhood, insisting that EMTALA protects the unborn — rather than pregnant women who need abortions during health emergencies.

According to the state, nothing in EMTALA imposes an obligation to provide stabilizing abortion care for pregnant women. Rather, the law “actually requires stabilizing treatment for the unborn children of pregnant women.” In the mifepristone case, advocates referred to fetuses as “unborn children,” while the district judge in Texas who invalidated F.D.A. approval of the drug described it as one that “starves the unborn human until death.”

Fetal personhood language is in ascent throughout the country. In a recent decision , the Alabama Supreme Court allowed a wrongful-death suit for the destruction of frozen embryos intended for in vitro fertilization, or I.V.F. — embryos that the court characterized as “extrauterine children.”

Less discussed but as worrisome is a recent oral argument at the Florida Supreme Court concerning a proposed ballot initiative intended to enshrine a right to reproductive freedom in the state’s Constitution. In considering the proposed initiative, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court repeatedly peppered Nathan Forrester, the senior deputy solicitor general who was representing the state, with questions about whether the state recognized the fetus as a person under the Florida Constitution. The point was plain: If the fetus was a person, then the proposed ballot initiative, and its protections for reproductive rights, would change the fetus’s rights under the law, raising constitutional questions.

As these cases make clear, the drive toward fetal personhood goes beyond simply recasting abortion as homicide. If the fetus is a person, any act that involves reproduction may implicate fetal rights. Fetal personhood thus has strong potential to raise questions about access to abortion, contraception and various forms of assisted reproductive technology, including I.V.F.

In response to the shifting landscape of reproductive rights, President Biden has pledged to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.” Roe and its successor, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, were far from perfect; they afforded states significant leeway to impose onerous restrictions on abortion, making meaningful access an empty promise for many women and families of limited means. But the two decisions reflected a constitutional vision that, at least in theory, protected the liberty to make certain intimate choices — including choices surrounding if, when and how to become a parent.

Under the logic of Roe and Casey, the enforceability of EMTALA, the F.D.A.’s power to regulate mifepristone and access to I.V.F. weren’t in question. But in the post-Dobbs landscape, all bets are off. We no longer live in a world in which a shared conception of constitutional liberty makes a ban on I.V.F. or certain forms of contraception beyond the pale.

Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University and a host of the Supreme Court podcast “ Strict Scrutiny ,” is a co-author of “ The Trump Indictments : The Historic Charging Documents With Commentary.”

Kate Shaw is a contributing Opinion writer, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and a host of the Supreme Court podcast “Strict Scrutiny.” She served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens and Judge Richard Posner.

Why We Shouldn T Hunting Be Banned Persuasive Essay

Hunting has been happening for over three million years. People back then hunted only to survive, needing bones, horns and hooves to create tools, fur to create clothing to stay warm in the harsh winters and meat to eat. With the development of agriculture, hunting was used less. It was only used to protect crops from animals. This generation doesn’t need to use animals since the world has advanced in agriculture, but according to “New 5-Year Report Shows 101.6 Million Americans Participated in Hunting, Fishing & Wildlife Activities,” 40% of the U.S population 16 years or older, or 101.6 million people, are still hunting. This century no longer needs to hunt animals because it causes animals to suffer before dying and multiple animals are abused. …show more content…

Clearly, this all proves people shouldn’t hunt because animals suffer before dying. On one hand, people should hunt animals because it helps owners who can’t train their dogs. According to “Hunting with your Dog,” by Malcolm Weir, “Obedience training begins early with fundamentals such as sit, stay, and come. Pups are naturally curious and eager to learn. Exposure to other animals, people, and places with their new sights, sounds, and scents is a key priority when preparing puppies for hunting.” This means the people who use dogs for hunting can begin their training earlier so the dogs are well behaved and it makes it easier to train. It’s easier to make an income and keep the dogs busy. Really, the world shouldn’t hunt animals because many animals are abused, including hunting dogs. One example of how animals get abused is that some animals are isolated and treated horribly when it’s not hunting season. The article, “Sport Hunting” by National Humane Education Society (NHES), “Some hunting dogs live and are raised in horrible …show more content…

According to “Sport Hunting”, canned hunting is when animals in captivity are shot by hunters. These animals are retired from circuses and zoos or taken from the wild and bred for purpose. This evidence proves that hunters do things that aren’t necessary. These animals did nothing wrong and worked their entire lives. Even though they aren’t needed anymore, there is no reason they can’t live. Without a doubt, this is how animals are abused, which means hunting should be stopped. Hunting needs to be stopped. People think there are many positives to hunting, and although there are, there are too many negatives that cancel out some positives. Some negatives of hunting include animals suffering and being abused. A positive is that hunting helps many people train their dogs so they become more obedient. This positive is canceled out because animals are abused, including retired zoo and circus animals, hunting dogs and animals taken from the wild, away from their families. The world thinks hunting isn’t horrible because they also want to protect their crops, gather protein, manage the wildlife populations and control the amount of diseases passed by animals. Many people do it just because it feels

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