A new report alleged a growing movement to ban books in school. PEN America, a nonprofit organization that defends free expression, said that from July 2021 to June 2022, 1,648 different books were removed from school shelves. What exactly does PEN mean when it says this?
Well, after repeatedly using the phrase “banning books,” the report quietly added a real definition of the phrase. “School book bans take varied forms, and can include prohibitions on books in libraries or classrooms, as well as a range of other restrictions, some of which may be temporary.”
Put another way, the controversial titles may be available elsewhere — they’re just not all available within every child’s reach at their local public school at any one time.
Still, conservatives are largely responsible for this restriction movement. More than half of the 50 states have removed at least one title from school shelves. Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania, states with large conservative majorities, have removed the most. Those petitioning school administrators or librarians to consider removing these books include local Facebook groups as well as larger groups such as Moms for Liberty, U.S. Parents Involved in Education, Parents’ Rights in Education, and Power2Parent. About 41% of the controversial books have LGBT characters or discuss overtly sexual topics, according to PEN. Another 40% of the books have protagonists of color and touch on race. The top line?
Some of these restrictions are prudent, but others are detrimental to education. True, the PEN report downplayed the explicit content of some LGBT-themed books. For example, the most commonly restricted book, Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, features sexually explicit images of masturbation, male-on-male oral sex, and more. Books like this, with sexually explicit images and content, are inappropriate for children.
At the same time, however, some books that have been taken off shelves, including Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, don’t deserve that status. Yes, there are adult themes and scenes in those books. But some older children could handle these elements and would find educational or contemplative value in reading these books. Perhaps these books shouldn’t be required reading, but they should be available for mature teenagers. Restricting that possibility, conservatives risk replicating the Left’s penchant for orthodox groupthink.
Process also matters here.
There may be some legitimacy to complaints as to how schools go about shelving these books — many are flagged, removed, and investigated, and then school boards or administrators make a final decision. But the substance of PEN’s report focused on which books were being “banned,” which organizations organized that restriction, and the fact that books are being removed from schools at all. The process factor was ignored. That should be an area where we can establish better commonsense frameworks.
If a circle of concerned parents or community members, which is ultimately what these advocacy groups entail, believes that a book’s content is inappropriate for children, it’s its prerogative to suggest the book be removed from school shelves. But proportion is also due. Some books that feature complicated social issues or controversial elements probably don’t need to be removed. Instead, parents could ask their children to refrain from reading those books until they’re older. Alternatively, they could ask the school for an opt-out.
Either way, this PEN report is a bit dramatic: It’s not book banning to remove sexually inappropriate books from school libraries, which exist to serve children. But going overboard with restrictions also poses concerns.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
