Library Study Shows It’s Just Politicians And Activist Groups Trying To Get Books Banned

Free Speech

from the too-much-free-time dept

What’s been noted before has been confirmed yet again: there is no widespread concern about the books kids have access to in public libraries. Instead, there’s just the concerted, but effective, efforts of a small group of people who feel everyone else’s rights end where their morality begins.

Something that was just the occasional blip on the radar for decades — the attempt to ban certain books — has become an everyday occurrence in recent years. There’s an acceleration in book ban attempts that can be directly traced back to Donald Trump’s first presidential term. Now that the window of opportunity is open, activists and “conservative” politicians are doing all they can to erase people and ideas they don’t like before that window closes or, at the very least, has its opening narrowed a bit.

The latest report [PDF] on censorship efforts compiled by the American Library Association makes it clear this isn’t a groundswell movement by personally offended parents to protect their kids from certain content. This is an activist movement that is determined to eliminate access to this content by whatever means necessary. Unfortunately, these groups are being helped along by legislators who believe their personal beliefs should be the only ones protected by the Constitution.

In its new State of American Libraries Report released Monday, the ALA found more than 70% of attempted bans of a given title or titles come from organized groups and elected officials, and just 16% originated with a parent.

The most commonly criticized books, including Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer” and the late Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” can be found on such websites as www.ratedbooks.org and through lists compiled by Moms for Liberty and other conservative activists.

“We can trace many of the challenges to lists of books that have been distributed by Moms for Liberty and other groups,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

The data shows this is a very recent phenomenon, with a sudden spike in book challenges occurring just as Trump was winding down his first term in office — one that was immediately followed by an insurrection attempt and the Republican party’s doubling down on everything Trump.

In 2023, OIF [Office for Intellectual Freedom] recorded demands to censor 4,240 unique book titles in libraries, the highest number of books challenged since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries. This reflects a 65% increase over the 2,571 unique titles targeted in 2022, the previous high. To understand how extraordinary this figure is, we can look at the average number of unique book titles challenged between 2001 through 2020. During that time, the average number of unique book titles targeted for censorship each year was 273. The highest recorded number of unique titles challenged during this period was 390 in one year. In that entire two-decade span, only 3,637 unique titles were challenged by censors—more than 600 fewer titles than in 2023.

This, of course, is due to the “party of free speech” being uniquely uninterested in actually protecting speech while acting in service of a man who didn’t even return to office until January of this year. His absence didn’t change the party’s thirst for censorship — something it touted even as it called for news agencies to have their licenses revoked, their press credentials rescinded, and — if possible — face prosecution for daring to criticize Trump and his followers.

There were plenty of empty threats involved in this concerted purge of content from libraries. But there were plenty of literal threats as well, ranging from personal threats delivered to librarians to the now-omnipresent government threat to libraries and the integral part they play in protecting First Amendment rights.

Reports filed with OIF documented an alarming number of threats directed at libraries and library workers. These threats included calls to close or defund libraries, attempts to criminally prosecute librarians and teachers for providing books and library resources to minors, and even bomb threats that closed down libraries and schools. Supporting many of these threats were legislative proposals by state lawmakers, who introduced 151 bills that would authorize the criminal prosecution of librarians, threaten library funding, or that imposed unconstitutional content-based restrictions on books for children and adolescents.

While it’s clear “Moms for Liberty” doesn’t actually care about liberty, it’s more disheartening to see elected officials not only ignoring the Constitution, but the best interests of their constituents. Contrary to what they may say in support of depriving people of rights, a majority of voters aren’t calling for book bans and/or the criminal prosecution of librarians. And, more hypocritically, many of these legislators, who claim their anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ+ efforts are being made to return more “control” to parents of school-aged children, are more than willing to deprive parents of the power to determine what their own kids should or shouldn’t read.

These are the actions of malicious, selfish people who think they alone are qualified to decide what content is or isn’t acceptable to be made publicly accessible. And once they’re done destroying school libraries, they’ll be coming for public libraries (and, indeed, they already are) to prevent adults from obtaining any content these self-appointed censors don’t personally care for.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, book bans, censorship, free speech, gop, libraries
Companies: american library association, moms for liberty