NCAC

What trends are you seeing in censorship in schools and libraries?

Attempts to ban library books and censor curricular materials are certainly not new; 44 years ago, the Supreme Court established that book bans can violate the First Amendment! But the nature of book bans has changed dramatically in the last 5 years, with the numbers of titles challenged and removed skyrocketing. There are two major shifts in educational censorship that explain this recent acceleration in censorship. 

First, well-funded political groups made book bans a key focus of their advocacy, sharing snippets of politically disfavored books online and organizing mass challenges to literature at the local level. Many of these challenges were filed by non-residents without any students in those schools, and many were filed by people who had never read the books they challenged. This wave of local book challenges resulted in a large administrative burden for school districts as they reviewed challenged materials--and made book bans a visible political tool. 

Second, as these local book challenges spread as a political cause, state legislatures began passing a wave of new laws restricting depictions topics related to sex, gender, and race; many of those laws have passed and filtered down to local schools, mandating the removal of many diverse and valuable books chosen by library professionals to serve their communities. And these book bans do not impact all readers equally: while many recent state laws target supposedly "obscene" content, in practice those bans are applied to LGBTQ content and authors, diminishing the diversity of a library and discriminating against both particular viewpoints and groups of people.

This has all happened despite the fact that the Supreme Court has not overruled its decades-long precedent that when a government bans a book based on disagreement with its viewpoint, that violates the First Amendment and amounts to unconstitutional censorship. This means that many recent educational censorship laws have been challenged -- many successfully -- in the courts. However, while those legal cases are pending, state laws like this cause widespread fear, confusion, and self-censorship even when those laws are ultimately found to be unconstitutional. So in addition to the increase in the scope of book bans, there is also a new pall of fear among teachers and librarians that they are targets of a political fight, which impedes their abilities to serve their communities well.

How do you respond to those who claim limiting content protects students?

The purpose of schools and libraries is to access knowledge. Librarians have a unique and challenging job: to select high-quality, age-appropriate, diverse learning materials that serve their specific community. Of course, curating a library or curriculum requires tough choices about what to include and what to exclude; and librarians are trained to make those choices to maximize the value of any collection--including by adding or limiting some of the materials in it. 

Book challenges and removals, however, are completely different: they are an attempt to second-guess the professional library work by cherry-picking certain books out of a collection and preventing others in the community from reading them. There is no world in which that protects kids; instead, it imposes one person's - or one government's - point of view on everyone else's ability to obtain those professionally curated books. That is censorship; protecting children includes inculcating them in our constitutional rights! Indeed, studies show the exact opposite: that limiting reading materials impedes student excellence and learning.

What legal or civic tools do students have to push back against censorship?

As with any human right, we should be using every tool available to fight back against censorship. 

First, and most importantly: know your rights! Very often, would-be censors rely on people to self-censor out of fear even when the First Amendment protects their right to speak. By knowing your rights, you can be an activist by standing up for your own free speech--and by identifying censorship when it happens in your community. 

Similarly, resist the urge to censor people who you disagree with: non-violent dissent is a feature of our environment, not a bug. It is okay to hear, oppose, and respond to speech you vehemently disagree with - our democracy is built on it. 

Second, be loud about your commitment to free speech. Attend school board meetings to praise diverse materials or oppose censorship pressures; thank your local librarian; make your library a community hub for other activism. Get your local political representatives phone numbers in your phone and use them regularly! Being an active citizen is essential, and politicians don't advocate for views that they don't hear from their constituents (or future constituents -- age is no bar)! Finally, if and when you experience censorship, you can report it to ncac.org - and we will have your back.