Dive Brief:
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Book bans impacting public schools have increased sharply in the 2023-24 school year compared with last year. Schools saw 4,349 instances of materials banned in just the first half of this school year, compared with 1,841 in the last half of 2022-23, according to a report released Tuesday by PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech.
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The organization said those attempting to ban books are disproportionately targeting titles by women and nonbinary authors, as well as materials that focus on themes of race and racism.
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Meanwhile in Florida, which has been in the forefront of curriculum censorship activities, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Tuesday limiting state residents without a child in a school district to objecting to only one material per month.
Dive Insight:
PEN America’s findings are in line with a recent report from the American Library Association that found a 65% increase in the number of book challenges in 2023 compared to 2022. ALA’s research showed that those promoting bans focused their efforts on both public and school libraries.
The book ban movement is also resulting in legal and criminal threats to librarians, the association said. Those promoting book censorship typically cite concerns that a certain book contains violence, sexual activity, disrespect for traditional family structures, or is inappropriate for a particular age group.
Since fall 2021, when PEN America began recording titles banned per semester under what it said was increased censorship activity, the tally of 4,349 materials banned in fall 2023 is by far the highest. The lowest per-semester number recorded in this time frame was 1,149 in spring 2022.
"In the third consecutive year of this attack on books and ideas, this organized effort has commandeered school and library boards, city councils, and state legislatures in an unprecedented effort to extend ideological control over public institutions and ban books by any means necessary," PEN America said in its report.
Between July 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2023, Florida saw the highest number of materials banned, with 3,135 across 11 school districts.
Florida's Escambia County Public Schools showed the highest per-district recorded number in the country with more than 1,600. Included in the district's restrictions were eight encyclopedias, "The Guinness Book of World Records," and "Ripley’s Believe it or Not" because of concerns they violate the state’s laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools.
Wisconsin recorded the second-highest number of bans with 481 in three districts. Most of these bans — 444 — occurred in the Elkhorn Area School District from a single parent’s challenge.
PEN America, however, is also finding evidence nationwide that student resistance to book bans is rising. Students in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District in fall 2023 coordinated a 56-minute walkout, with one minute for every book challenged. And in Laramie County, Wyoming, students staged a “read-in” at an October school board meeting where board members were considering an opt-in policy for checking out certain books at the library.
Additionally, more states have implemented or are considering “Freedom to Read” laws restricting the removal of materials due to the origin or views of the authors. Some of these proposals require school libraries to include diverse points of view in their collections or risk losing funding.
