A survey reveals that efforts to outlaw books accelerated last year, with thousands of schools banning hundreds of books, often those that addressed ‘culture wars’ problems like gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.
According to a study released on Monday by the anti-censorship organization PEN America, there were 2,532 instances of specific book bans impacting 1,648 titles at around 5,000 schools with 4 million pupils during the 2021–2022 academic year.
The group detailed a campaign by politicians and recently founded parent groups to remove books from school libraries that it compared to the ‘Moral Majority’ purges of the early 1980s and the anti-communist McCarthy period.
According to study author Jonathan Friedman, “this fast increasing shift has resulted in more and more students losing access to literature that prepares them to handle the problems and complexity of democratic life.”
Young adult literature novels containing themes or characters who are homosexual, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, as well as works that address issues of race and identity, were often among the publications that were outlawed.
Texas led the nation with 801 restrictions spread over 22 districts. According to the survey, political campaigns have also been active in Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, which was eliminated by 41 school districts, was the most commonly prohibited book. The path of the author’s self-identity and “what it means to be nonbinary and asexual” are mapped out in the book.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, which was prohibited in 29 school districts, and Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez, which was prohibited in 24 schools, came after it, according to researchers.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and two novels, The Bluest Eye and Beloved, by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, whose writings primarily address race, are two other books that are routinely banned.
About 50 organizations, including Moms for Liberty, US Parents Involved in Education, and No Left Turn in Education, were recognized by PEN America as actively promoting book bans. Since 2021, the majority of the groupings have formed.
The CEO of the organization, Suzanne Nossel, said that the broad prohibition was no longer being pursued by “individual concerned people” but rather by “sophisticated, ideological, and well-resourced lobbying groups.”
Their initiatives are often associated with Republican politicians like Texas congressman Matt Krause and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who both sought to outlaw conversations about gender and sexual orientation in the classroom.
According to Nossel, “This censorious trend is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, dividing neighbourhoods, displacing teachers and librarians from their positions, and dampening the spirit of free inquiry.”
Those who support removing literature from curricula claim that by doing so, they are battling workers in education, defending the rights of parents, and eliminating novels that are either overtly sexual or cause confusion among teenagers about their gender.
They often target books they claim to support the critical race theory, which maintains that decades of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws have ingrained racial prejudice in current American institutions and legislation.
Moms for Liberty co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice told DailyMail.com that they were defending parents’ rights to have a role in their children’s education.
They said in a statement that “it is time to break the stranglehold teacher unions have over public education.”
Candidates were urged to “stand with parents” and “reveal those who prefer to defend special interest groups above the best interests of children” in the forthcoming midterm elections.