The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Sep 21, 2022
Pen America – Banned in the USA: "Key Findings: More books banned; More districts; More states; More students losing access to literature. "More" is the operative word for this report on school book bans, which offers the first comprehensive look at bans throughout the 2021–22 school year. This report offers an update on the count in PEN America's previous report, Banned in the USA: Rising School Book Bans Threaten Free Expression and Students' First Amendment Rights (April 2022), which covered the first nine months of the school year (July 2021 to March 2022). It also sheds light on the role of organized efforts to drive many of the bans. Many Americans may conceive of challenges to books in schools in terms of reactive parents, or those simply concerned after thumbing through a paperback in their child's knapsack or hearing a surprising question about a novel raised by their child at the dinner table. However, the large majority of book bans underway today are not spontaneous, organic expressions of citizen concern. 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.
From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America's Index of School Book Bans lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles.
The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether.
The numbers in this report represent documented cases of book bans reported directly to PEN America and/or covered in the media; there are likely additional bans that have not been reported.."
Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries
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