DOE Paves Way for Book Bans

On January 24, 2025, the U.S. Office of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) dismissed eleven complaints related to book bans and six more complaints that were still under investigation. Going even further, the OCR rescinded all of its former guidance that had been issued under the idea that school districts’ removal of books they considered age-inappropriate would create a hostile environment for students. In addition, it will no longer employ a “book ban coordinator” to investigate local school districts and parents working to enact book bans. According to Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, the OCR took these actions to restore “the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education.” The OCR’s recognition of this as a right is in keeping with Trump’s Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families executive order, issued five days later, which aims to give parents more control over their children’s educations.

These actions came following a review of book ban cases initiated on January 20th. In this review, the OCR determined that the seventeen complaints, which opposed the removal of books by school districts, parents, and community stakeholders evaluating and removing materials based on whether they were determined to be age-appropriate, do not count as book bans. They further delineated between parental and community judgment and civil rights violations and defined the removal of these books as community judgment. Based on this reasoning, the complaints fell outside the jurisdiction of the OCR, which deals only with civil rights violations. 

These changing responses to book bans are due to the recent change in administration. The Biden administration, which appointed the book ban coordinator the OCR recently removed, responded to book ban accusations by working to keep the debated books in schools. The first of the book ban complaints received by the Biden administration alleged that the Forsyth School County District in Georgia violated Title IX, which protects against sex-based discrimination, and Title VI, which prevents discrimination based on race or nationality, by removing eight books from the school library because they determined that they contained sexually explicit content. OCR’s regional Atlanta office sought to dismiss the complaint, but OCR leadership in Washington intervened and exacted a resolution agreement from the district to embrace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

The OCR under the Trump administration intends to terminate this agreement. It sees the books school districts are banning as “sexually graphic or racially divisive” and blames the Biden administration’s acceptance of the “false narrative” that banning these books created a hostile environment for students for the seventeen complaints it recently dismissed. Opponents of the bans and the OCR’s decision, such as nonprofit group PEN America (which, in the 2023-2024 school year counted 10,046 examples of book bans) and the American Library Association, argue that these local decisions target books about racism, sexuality, and gender written by people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women—PEN America noted on their website that “of the most commonly banned books in the 2023-2024 school year, 44% featured people and characters of color and 39% featured LGBTQ+ people and characters.” As such, book bans are a form of censorship and violate civil rights laws. 

More recently, during the week of February 10th, the defense department has suspended books related to gender and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion topics from all Pentagon school libraries. Some of these books include No Truth Without Ruth, a book for four-to-eight-year-olds about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Freckleface Strawberry, a book for four-to-eight-year-olds about a young girl learning to accept her freckles, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, and a packet on Black History Month. These suspensions are part of a larger compliance review in accordance with two of President Trump’s executive orders: Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling. The former states that it will “defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” which includes rejecting “gender ideology” on the basis that it accepts a spectrum of genders rather than a binary. The latter aims to end DEI education in schools because it leads children to identify as “either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics.”

Organizations that oppose the Trump administration’s actions encourage Americans to take action to keep all books available in schools and libraries. These actions include being involved in local libraries, advocating against book bans at library and school board meetings, and contacting elected officials in the process of making decisions about their constituents’ access to books. Effects of the book ban in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia have yet to make themselves known.