New state laws are fueling a surge in book bans

States and local governments are banning books at rates far higher than before the pandemic, according to preliminary data released by two advocacy groups on Monday.

Books have been challenged and removed from schools and libraries for decades, but around 2021, these instances began to skyrocket, fanned by a network of conservative groups and the spread on social media of lists of titles some considered objectionable.

Free speech advocates who track this issue say that in the past year, newly implemented state legislation has been a significant driver of challenges.

PEN America, a free speech group that gathers information on banning from school board meetings, school districts, local media reports and other sources, said that more than 10,000 books were removed, at least temporarily, from public schools in the 2023-24 school year. That’s almost three times as many removals as during the school year before.

About 8,000 of those bans came just from Florida and Iowa, where newly implemented state laws led to large numbers of books being removed from the shelves while they were assessed.

Lawmakers and those who describe themselves as parental rights advocates favor restricting access to certain books because they don’t believe children should stumble upon sensitive topics while alone in the library, or without guidance from their parents. Many think that some books that have traditionally been embraced in school libraries are inappropriate for minors, including, for example, “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison, which includes references to rape and incest.

The law in Iowa, which went into effect in 2023, prohibits any material that depicts sexual acts from all K-12 schools, with the exception of religious texts. It also limits instruction about gender and sexual orientation until seventh grade. In Florida, a law that took effect before the 2023-24 school year said that any book challenged for “sexual conduct” must be removed while it is reviewed.

PEN considers any book that has been removed from access to have been banned, even if the book is eventually put back. Kasey Meehan, the Freedom to Read program director at PEN America, said that while the numbers in Florida and Iowa were high, the issue is widespread.

“We see this happening nationwide,” she said, “in school districts everywhere.”

The American Library Association also released a report Monday based on preliminary data. The group gathers its own information, and relies on a different definition of what constitutes a book ban. For the library association, a book must be removed — not just temporarily, while it is reviewed — to count as being banned.

The library association found that, according to that definition, the instances of book banning were down somewhat from the year before, with 414 challenges to library materials, involving 1,128 unique titles, from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 2024. During the same period the year before, it found 695 challenges involving 1,915 titles. (The group plans to release a report in early 2025 covering the entirety of 2024.)

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, said the drop may be due, in part, to the fact that the library association itself has become a target. Much of its data is based on confidential reporting by its members and other library professionals, she said, but in various parts of the country librarians have been pressured to sever ties with the organization, which has been vocal in demanding that books be returned to circulation.

Caldwell-Stone said that the library association’s data found that, even with a dip, the instances of book banning so far in 2024 were far higher than they were before 2020.

The library association and PEN America both emphasized that these numbers were almost certainly an undercount. Both groups rely on information from local news reports, but in many districts across the country, there is no education reporter keeping tabs.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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