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Last year, a record 2,571 unique books were targeted for censorship in US public schools, often by parent-led groups. That’s according to statistics released in March by the American Library Association (ALA), and represents a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. The majority of those titles were written by or about members of the LGBTQ community and people of color. This trend shows no sign of slowing down.
Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, writes, “Every attempt to ban a book by one of these groups represents a direct attack on everyone’s constitutionally protected right to freely choose which books to read and which ideas to explore.”
And now the ALA has support in the form of an open letter from former US President Barack Obama, criticizing the right’s “deeply misguided” efforts to ban books from public school libraries. He asserts that some of the books that shaped his life and the lives of many others are now being challenged by those who disagree with certain ideas or viewpoints.
Who is behind the recent book ban in the United States?
Attempts to ban books in the United States have become more systematic in recent years, with right-wing minorities targeting books about LGBTQ topics or featuring black characters and issues. Ban campaigns are being organized by groups such as Moms for Liberty, which advocate for textbook bans; Parents Defend Education, which strives to counter activist efforts to introduce “harmful agendas” into schools; and No Left Turn in Education, which co-leads opposition to Critical Race Theory Teaching (CRT) – an academic framework that emerged in the 1970s for understanding and challenging systemic racism and its impact on society.
It’s not just individual addresses that these groups want to block, but multiple addresses at once. According to the ALA, 40% of attempts last year aimed at censoring 100 or more books at a time.
Because these groups are well organized, politicians pursue electoral advantages, as in the case of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The Republican is running for president in the upcoming 2024 election. In 2022, he signs into a punitive but vaguely worded state law on education, the Stop-Woke Act. It was eventually overturned by a Florida judge, but Florida schools and universities continue to self-censor themselves for fear of breaking the law.
The effectiveness of these campaign groups has led politicians in 10 US states to enact legislation to increase parental control over library content or restrict student access to certain materials.
Barack Obama has announced his support for the Salvation Army’s Unite Against Book Ban campaign, which aims to counter attempts at censorship.
Black and LGBTQ literature in plain sight
In his open letter, Barack Obama explained how reading about people with dramatically different lives helped him empathize with them. He added that such books are invaluable to understanding society.
It expressed particular concern with regard to censorship of minority authors. Books written in black and subject to bans and school censorship in various states include contemporary works such as Angie Thomas’ “The Hate U Give,” a powerful novel dealing with racism and police violence. Monday’s Not Coming, directed by Tiffany D. Jackson, which spotlights missing black girls and women; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a memoir that explores the experiences of an eccentric black man.
Historically relevant books are also at the center of the censorship storm, among them Alice Wooler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple, which faces challenges for explicit content; and “The Blue Eye,” an examination of race, class, and gender by Toni Morrison, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature for it.
The United States inspires educational censorship in other democracies
As Barack Obama emphasizes, “It is important to understand that the world is watching. If America—a nation built on free speech—allows certain voices and ideas to be silenced, why are other nations doing their best to protect them?”
And indeed, he has a point. It seems that other English-speaking democracies, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, are already taking inspiration from the United States. As in the United States, Ajazeera reported, governments in those countries are giving in to parents, religious groups, or other staunch right-wing conservatives who are pushing for bans.
In the United Kingdom, for example, there is growing concern about critical race theory in schools, leading to the censorship and removal from school shelves of books that explore systemic racism, as well as children’s books on diversity and LGBTQ identities. Canada is also seeing parental groups request that books with LGBTQ content be banned and are looking for changes in curriculum topics related to critical race theory. The Australian Senate voted against including critical race theory in school curricula in 2021.
Other major democracies in the world have made headlines by banning or censoring books in recent years as well.
Hungary, Turkey and Brazil: democracies ban or censor books
In Europe, the worst cases of censorship lie in Hungary. Although books are not explicitly banned, in 2021 the Hungarian government ordered bookstores to close all books suspected of promoting homosexuality or transgenderism or containing “explicit” images of sexuality before selling them to individuals under the age of 18.
Bookstores that don’t abide by the law have to pay heavy fines – like the Budapest Bookstore which recently featured the award-winning young adult graphic novel “Heartstopper” in the children’s section of the store. He was fined around 32,000 euros ($35,600).
Turkey has imposed a ban on the sale of children’s books such as “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls,” a collection of empowering stories about women from history.
Also in Brazil, there have been concerted efforts against “indoctrination” and “gender ideology” in schools in the past. Lawmakers have introduced more than 200 legislative proposals to ban sex and sexuality education since 2014. As of May 2022, Human Rights Watch verified that at least 21 laws that directly or indirectly prohibit sex and sexuality education remain in force in the country.
Although the newly elected Brazilian government under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva does not support book bans, it continues at the local level, as Brazil’s Estado de Minas newspaper reported recently.
Edited by Tanya Ott
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