In the 2022-2023 school year, 1,477 individual books were banned in schools. K-12 education is experiencing a rise in banned books. In 2000, only 378 unique titles were challenged in the United States. In 2022, up to 2,571 unique titles have been challenged.
Recently, the children’s book publisher Scholastic went under fire for allowing teachers to exclude their “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice” collection for the Scholastic Book Fair, which includes books that promote diversity and Black history. Titles included autobiographies about Ketanji Brown Jackson, Ruby Bridges, and John Lewis. Other titles included are Sabrina Vourvoulias’ Nuestra América, an anthology of famous Latin in U.S. history and Rio Cortez’s The ABCs of Black History. There was also a diverse offering of fiction and non-fiction titles.
Social media reacted negatively to this, saying that Scholastic was giving in to the ultra conservative groups that are targeting these books. Scholastic responded in a statement, “This fall, we made changes in our U.S. elementary school fairs out of concern for our book fair hosts. In doing this, we offered a collection of books to supplement the diverse collection of titles already available at the Scholastic Book Fair. We understand now that the separate nature of the collection has caused confusion and feelings of exclusion.” They continued on to say, “It is unsettling that the current divisive landscape in the U.S. is creating an environment that could deny any child access to books, or that teachers could be penalized for creating access to all stories for their students.”
It’s true that the book bans are making it difficult for teachers to educate their students. A teacher in Georgia was fired for reading My Shadow is Purple to her students because the book involved the topic of gender fluidity and expression. Georgia is one of the few states that experiences a lot of book banning. States with prominent book bans include Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina. Teachers fear that this war on censorship will affect the educational growth of children.
Who Is Causing The Book Bans?
Book bans are usually caused by concerned parents who are members of their children’s student council. Additionally, these parents could be members of certain conservative groups that push ideologies onto the board. According to Pen America, there are 50 groups across the nation that are working on banning books from libraries. The most prominent conservative group orchestrating these book bans is Moms For Liberty.
Moms For Liberty is a conservative group and is a fairly young group, formed in 2021 in Florida. The group has quickly risen in popularity and membership since then and expanded into 284 chapters in 44 states. There are 15 chapters in the DMV area, none of which are located in DC.
The group’s mission, according to their website, is “fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” The “parental rights” in question are censoring books that mention anything about the LGBTQ community and racism that’s existed in the United States throughout history. The Florida chapter of Moms For Liberty advocated for an expansion for the Don’t Say Gay bill. Their obvious mission spreads queerphobia and suppresses the existence of queer people.
Book Banning Conference
On November 16th, I had the privilege to attend The Children’s Book Guild of DC’s conference via ZOOM. The conference covered book bans in K-12 education, with retired teacher Pat Scales as a speaker for the evening. Scales serves on the Board of Advisors of the National Coalition against Censorship, an organization dedicated to fight censorship and protect freedom of expression.
“I think these organized groups got together one night and decided ‘let’s go after this’ and that’s what they did,” Scales said in response to a question about what is triggering the banning of books. Scales continued on and said “They organized via social media and then got the ears of politicians in Florida; we’ve seen what’s happened there.”
In her presentation, Scales reported on the rise of banned books in 2022 and now. She noted that 41% of uniquely titled banned books have LGBTQ themes, protagonists, or prominent secondary characters. Scales also stated that 40% have protagonists or prominent secondary characters that are people of color, according to Pen America. “My message to writers is to keep writing good books and we’ll keep defending them,” said Scales. She also shared her concern of the rising group, Moms For Liberty, and other conservative groups that are rapidly taking over councils and congress.
I asked Scales in the Q&A portion of the conference, “ Do you think the number of banned books, especially the ones involving themes of racial discrimination, will affect the education of kids?” She responded, “Yeah, I think it already has somewhat. I think that same group, Moms For Liberty, and others like them are really trying to affect the curriculum in schools. You know, education is the greatest protection in the world for all of us. We need to be reading about one another and celebrating one another, and when we take that out, yes, I do think it will.”
The Effect of Book Banning
What’s happening here is the attack of the LGBTQ community and people of color in order to keep the white heterosexual status quo. Alienating queer, black, and brown art will teach children how to hate and spread ignorance.
The banning of books that tell the history or acknowledge the existence of minority groups will only damage children’s education. They will become worse at reading, writing, analyzing – all tools needed to excel in middle school, high school, and higher education. You can’t skip certain parts of history because they don’t align with a certain religion and/or ideology; it’s not a proper way to learn. It could be viewed as fascism.
One of my earliest memories of elementary school was reading autobiographies about famous Black figures such as Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Shaquille O’Neal. My favorite books to read were Christopher Paul Curtis’ The Watsons Go To Birmingham, Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. In middle and high school, I read books with LGBTQ themes such as Raina Telgemeier’s Drama, Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. The Homosapien Agenda.
Reading books with a diverse set of characters and stories made me a better reader and writer. I wouldn’t be as educated about current issues today if I didn’t read books from minority voices. Robbing children of education and expanding their worldview will result in more ignorance and a decline in education worldwide.
Featured image/photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash.