We Analyzed 1,626 Banned Books Here's What We Found
statecraft.beehiiv.com
statecraft.beehiiv.com
I think if the book is removed against the wishes of the librarian, that's an irregular ban.
>But clearly there exist some books that dont belong in a children’s library.
The article points out there are "regular" reasons for bannings, and they didn't include those books:
"They are supplemental to and fall outside of the standard book exclusion process (e.g. standard exclusions prevent books that promote violent, hateful, or 'mature/17+' topics from being placed on school bookshelves)."
Besides, the article then points to the disproportionate number of books removed for (1) "violent content" when it's about political resistances versus military violence, and (2) "sexual topics" when it's about non-heterosexual relationships versus heterosexual. I've never heard of a book removed because it mentions a kid had a mom and a dad.
There's obviously a motive besides protecting the children from violent or sexual content.
Clearly I would agree that Fifty Shades of Grey should probably not be available in a school library. I would debate, given its historical significance, whether Mein Kampf should be included. But a book about the life of Rosa Parks should be mandatory in school libraries.
I'm a UK resident, and might not be understanding things correctly. We don't do book banning or excluding over here.
What if there were 10 Rosa Parks books reviewed and were deemed fine, and that one was filled with false ideological nonsense?
I find this article disingenuous.
Really? If I wrote a book entitled “The Darwin Option: A retrospective and brutally honest view about why Darwin was right about women,” you wouldn’t protest if it was put in the school library where an edgy 13-year-old could read it?
I already stated a book that shouldn't be in school libraries, one that is debatable, and one that should probably be included in libraries.
My point about book banning or excluding, was that in the UK, as far as I am aware, we don't have any centralised list of books that can't be in a public or school library. It is left to the judgement of the librarian and not central or local government.
This makes it sound as though NO book is EVER banned or excluded. Which is blatantly false.[0]
If you had meant “we don't have any centralised list of books that can't be in a public or school library”, then you should have said that. Not make a false general statement. Though I’d be pleasantly surprised to hear that there are laws in place to prevent local/central government bans, considering the UK’s history of such things. Wikipedia doesn’t list such a law, although it does list that the last banned book was unbanned by your government in 1992, and that none have been added since.
[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/20/third-of-uk-li...
An Appeal to Extremes is not always inaccurate, nor always a fallacy.
> "My point about book banning or excluding, was that in the UK, as far as I am aware, we don't have any centralised list of books that can't be in a public or school library. It is left to the judgement of the librarian and not central or local government."
And you assume the government doesn't, or would not, put heavy pressure on any school or librarian that would dare have a book by David Duke on the shelves? Whether it be the UK or California?
I actually like Florida because they make it clear and explicit instead of unclear and implicit, even if the results are identical but censoring different views. A written law, versus an unwritten rule.
Out of interest, of the list in the first table, are there any books that you agree should not be accessible to young people?
I find it interesting that parental pressure, probably heavily influenced by political, cultural and religious leanings, can influence what a library can have in it's inventory.
Should the Quran be available in libraries in Wyoming? Should the Bible be available in libraries in Pakistan?
I don't know about each individual book listed; but I would like to sidestep that and address the fact idea that "parental pressure, probably heavily influenced by political, cultural and religious leanings, can influence what a library can have in it's inventory."
This has always been true, and I believe, always will be true. Even the liberal free world has its limits beyond which you will experience outrage if you speak a certain thought. If Alex Jones wrote a book about Frog Biology, even the most astute "we must not ban books!" parent would immediately shout that has no place in the school. If David Duke wrote a book about understanding the Jewish race, once again, even the most "we must not ban books!" parent would immediately scream that should be purged from the shelves. I think many of the same individuals would be extremely opposed to a hypothetical book written by Trump entitled "Being a Good President and Fulfilling Your Civic Duties." Heck, what about "Andrew Tate's Guide to Being a Cool Dude?" What about "James Damore's guide to Diversity in Action at Google?"
There is no disagreement, truly, that some books or ideas are beyond the pale. I think you would admit yourself that you would not want an Alex Jones Biology book to be where a child could find it even if it had no sexually explicit or otherwise harmful content other than the ideas inside of it. If you are opposed to any of my above hypotheticals (David Duke's Guide to Jews), you are admitting that sharing some ideas is harmful and should be stopped, like it or not. The only question is what content and what ideas is considered harmful. And of course, what standards determine what content should not be permitted.
Florida has picked their standards - it's traditional religious opposition to LGBTQ+ content. Note that it's not even Christian opposition - There was an incident just last week with Islamic people in Canada burning the Rainbow flag (because there is only one religion on earth that still actively stones gays). They've chosen general religious values, as they generally apply across many religions' teachings. Like it? Don't like it? Don't pretend like either side doesn't have things they don't want to censor. It's what to censor, not whether we censor.
Are you not going to try and draw any line at all to protect free speech rights in this scenario? I mean, if we're going to one extreme and talking about David Duke, we should also talk about the other extreme as well. If a school board decided that any book by a black author would not be allowed in the library, would you view that as an unreasonable exercise of government power? If a school board decided that any books that criticized a specific political party (either Republican or Democrat, pick whichever you'd like) should be banned, would that be an abuse of government power? What if they banned any text that referred positively to a religion, are we allowed to call that government overreach?
Is there even such a thing as an unreasonable exercise of government power over school library content? Or should we just throw up our hands and say everything is fine and anybody can censor anything they want for school kids?
Remember that the 1st Amendment does still apply to minors. We typically allow more government intervention into their lives than we do into the lives of adults, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that children have constitutional rights.
So the question is not whether or not it's always wrong to censor material from a school library. Like you've said, there are types of content that pretty much everyone agrees should be censored from a school library. But that's not what we're asking; we're asking if it's crossing a line for the government to censor this content. Is it acceptable for a government to censor material based on (what you yourself describe as) explicitly religious criteria? That doesn't ring any 1st Amendment-related alarms for you?
It's very common for people to attempt to sidestep questions about government censorship by (correctly) pointing out that all governments censor. But falling back on the commonly cited Popehat article (https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...):
> The observation "not all speech is protected" adds nothing to a discussion because it offers no mechanism for determining whether the speech at issue falls into a traditional exception or not.
Yes, children have constitutional rights. Also, ironically, the US Government has ruled that these rights can be reasonably curtailed at public schools even though they are US Government funded. An example just a day ago, a judge ruled that a student could be disciplined for wearing a "There are two genders" T-Shirt. I'm not saying that's right or wrong - but that statement was just ruled to be not free expression on school grounds. First Amendment need not apply on school grounds, that's already established.
> What if they banned any text that referred positively to a religion, are we allowed to call that government overreach?
Do we arguably not do that now? I am sure that any books endorsing Osama Bin Laden's extremist interpretation of Islam is not welcome on shelves.
> So the question is not whether or not it's always wrong to censor material from a school library. Like you've said, there are types of content that pretty much everyone agrees should be censored from a school library. But that's not what we're asking; we're asking if its crossing a line for the government to censor this content.
There is, I believe, a major distinction you are forgetting. The First Amendment protects the student's right to speak - but does it actually protect the school's right to say whatever they wish to the students? Where do you assume that it works vice-versa? Schools can, and do, implement restrictions on vice-versa speech all the time. If a teacher starts, or attempts to start, a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old female student, he will almost certainly be fired and often legally investigated even if it was technically legal. If a teacher makes sexist jokes in class, the First Amendment won't protect him even if he was employed by the government, literally working on publicly-owned ground.
> Is it acceptable for a government to censor material based on (what you yourself describe as) explicitly religious criteria? That doesn't ring any 1st Amendment-related alarms for you?
To be fair, the First Amendment has always legally had an exception for obscenity from a judicial perspective. There was also the "Miller Test," which is still technically legally binding, declaring obscenity to not be legally protected. Nowadays, what is considered obscenity is very narrow - but it used to be far more broad and our earlier presidents and Founding Fathers saw no problem with that. Free Speech was intended by them to promote progress and intelligent discussion, not to promote what they would have viewed as debauchery, so they saw no conflict. This is also why laws making it a misdemeanor (at a minimum) to knowingly distribute pornography to a minor are still legal and binding right now.
"Reasonably" being the key word here. Does a specifically religiously based restriction of speech fall into that category -- is that "reasonable"? Probably not; after all we call that category of discrimination out specifically in the constitution as being not OK.
> An example just a day ago, a judge ruled that a student could be disciplined for wearing a "There are two genders" T-Shirt. I'm not saying that's right or wrong.
Why aren't you saying if that's right or wrong? Like, seriously, does that seem to you like a reasonable use of government power? And do you think if that case was escalated up to the Supreme Court they would agree?
You're still making the same argument: "some speech is restricted." Well, yeah, but the why matters. The categories are not arbitrary. Some speech is allowed to be restricted, but some speech is not allowed to be restricted. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of student expression before.
So it's not useful to say "some speech is restricted." Some is, some isn't. Which of those two categories does this restriction of speech fall into?
> The First Amendment protects the student's right to speak - but does it actually protect the school's right to say whatever they wish to the students?
Yes, teachers are also covered by the 1st Amendment. And government restriction of viewpoint and restriction of access to a viewpoint can fall foul of the 1st Amendment. As just one example, if a student asks a teacher what religion they are, and the teacher answers that they're a Christian -- if they're not directly proselytizing, that is protected speech. We had a court case about this recently before the Supreme Court, and while the details of that expression were contested and court members disagreed about whether that expression was protected -- the basic idea that teachers have freedom of speech was not contested. The whole court was in agreement on that point; and ultimately the majority of the court ruled that banning or retaliating against that specific expression of religious speech was unconstitutional.
Not only did the entire court agree that teachers have 1st Amendment rights, the majority of the court ultimately argued that specific instance of expression was protected speech.
Viewpoint suppression by the government can be a 1st Amendment issue. To reiterate the above point, you keep saying that not all censorship is unconstitutional. But some censorship in schools is unconstitutional. We don't give the government unlimited power to suppress viewpoint in public school settings.
> if a teacher starts, or attempts to start, a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old female student
What? What on earth does this have to do with speech or censorship? Or are you implying this is a vice-versa restriction? It's not. If a teacher is in a sexual relationship with a student, it doesn't matter who started it, it's still grossly inappropriate.
I, personally, do not believe that it is a fair use of government power, and I do believe it was a wrong decision.
> Do you think if that case was escalated up to the Supreme Court they would agree? You're still making the same argument: "some speech is restricted." Well, yeah, but why and how do we determine those categories? Some speech is not allowed to be restricted. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of student expression before.
The reason I keep bringing it up is that I keep hearing this argument framed as "book bans." They're banning books! To which I point out, yes, we ban books, don't pretend like we don't, or that the other side is pro-censorship when both sides have books they really don't like on shelves. It's a matter of which books. I keep bringing it up because the framing as though "they want to ban books, but our side doesn't because book bans are automatically fascist" is, I feel, hypocritical.
> As just one example, if a student asks a teacher what religion they are, and the teacher answers that they're a Christian -- if they're not directly proselytizing, that is protected speech. We had a court case about this recently before the Supreme Court, and while the details of that expression were contested and court members disagreed about whether that expression was protected -- the basic idea that teachers have freedom of speech was not contested.
And yet, if they were to say an optional non-denominational prayer before the beginning of class, they would often risk be fired. SCOTUS has ruled that's OK - they are not allowed to direct prayer in their official duties despite that somehow not infringing on their rights to freedom of speech. I think that's wrong but that's how that stands now.
> What? What on earth does this have to do with speech or censorship? Or are you implying this is a vice-versa restriction? It's not. If a teacher is in a sexual relationship with a student, it doesn't matter who started it, it's still grossly inappropriate.
My point was, is a teacher permitted to perform speech that would attempt to solicit such a relationship, in the name of freedom of speech? No laws were broken - she's at the legal age. The teacher had free speech, didn't he? Did she not have free speech? Did they both not have the freedom to associate with any individual of their choice? But we all accept penalties for it despite no laws officially broken.
Also, who are you to judge it as being grossly inappropriate? What is your basis for that? Again, you have no laws you can point to as having been broken. Why is it not an infringement on their human rights to judge them that way? Why does "Love is love" not apply? (I'm still against it BTW - I just want you to think about it. Either Love is Love, or sometimes, Love isn't always Love but that has implications...)
Right, but what I'm saying is that this argument is complete nonsense. "We censor some things but not other things" -- yeah, that's how the 1st Amendment works. It has limitations and they're established in law, and it is useful to try and figure out when something is still stepping over a line because it is possible to step over the line.
Of course, both Democrats and Republicans are often hypocritical about free speech issues. That is to be expected. But it adds nothing to the conversation to say "some censorship is allowed." Okay, some censorship is allowed. So? Sometimes Democrats are hypocritical about speech, and that means... what we're all going to be hypocritical now? We're just going to have a field day with it, everybody ban anything they want?
Is censorship that is (by your description) specifically designed to enforce religious adherence constitutional? That question doesn't go away just because we don't allow porn in the kids section of a library.
This just seems so silly to me. Who looks at someone being hypocritical and says, "the answer to this is to have fewer objective standards so that it's even easier for hypocrites to abuse power?"
> And yet, if they were to say an optional non-denominational prayer before the beginning of class, they would often risk be fired. SCOTUS has ruled that's OK. I think that's wrong but that's how that stands now.
If you're referring to Abington v. Schempp, SCOTUS protections for retaliation in that area have never been weaker. But okay, let's talk about those boundaries. The Supreme Court has clearly ruled (recently) that it is illegal to fire a teacher over some religious speech, including specifically optional public prayers. So there does appear to be a boundary here between what the Supreme Court views as government censorship vs government compelled speech. I guarantee you the Supreme Court does not see that boundary as arbitrary.
So we're back to the start. Some speech is protected, some isn't. But you can't act like this is arbitrary; pointing out that some speech is banned adds nothing to the conversation. And if your argument is that the Supreme Court believes that state-endorsement of Deism isn't protected, that's not really an argument in favor of religiously motivated book bans.
> My point was, is a teacher permitted to perform speech that would attempt to solicit such a relationship
Entering into a sexual relationship with a student is not speech.
Not banning anything is an extreme position. It literally cannot be anymore extreme in its permissiveness so any example is valid.
I would say K-8 shouldn't have erotic or romance novels, religion, conspiracy theories, violent or racist ideologies. It seems petty and pointless virtue signaling of the very weak to ban books about nontraditional identities and lifestyle choices. Kids probably won't care about them except out of curiosity. No book is going to turn a kid gay just as conversion therapy isn't feasible or humane.
At the high school level, don't ban a book unless it provides zero educational value and it falls under one of the categories above. There is educational value in dissecting radical violent ideological manifestos to expose the historical failures. And Fahrenheit 451 should be assigned reading. Students need to be enlightened as to the tricks and devices of how charismatic leaders convinced people to murder one another.
So that basically boils down to: "Most everyone agrees that mature/17+ content should be excluded and it regularly is. In contrast, irregular bans are for content that is not typically excluded or that falls beyond the lists of categories that would immediately spring to someone's mind when asked what types of content shouldn't be shown to kids."
On one hand, yeah, that's a subjective classification. Absolutely. On the other hand, anyone who argues that "I Am Rosa Parks" isn't an irregular ban is not really seriously engaging with that classification. There is a generally understood difference for most reasonable people between pornography and the history of Black activism (regardless of whether or not that portrayal of history is one that everyone likes).
And while blurry lines can be really problematic, to argue that censorship of adult/mature material grants carte blanch rights for governments and public school boards to exclude any book from school settings is to basically give up entirely on trying to find any way to protect 1st Amendment rights in lower education. You're really not even going to try to draw a line anywhere?
From the article:
> We did entertain the viewpoint from ban advocates that the books being banned are largely driven by age-inappropriate content. This viewpoint does not align with publisher provided maturity ratings as below:
> [...]
> Further, the particular age-inappropriate topics being referred to by ban advocates like violent or sexual content are specific to social violence and non-heteronormative sexual topics. Books that heavily feature heterosexual relationships and/or military violence are not being referred to by ban advocates nor are they disproportionally being targeted.
I have some sympathy for people who argue that these distinctions are subjective because blurry lines are how we get this type of censorship in the first place. Blurry lines are how we get people getting bolder and bolder about what books to exclude from libraries and curriculum. But that's not a defense of the current bans, if anything it's a warning to be even more careful about subjectively defined categories of censorship.
Especially when those categories are so clearly being expanded. I mean, come on, these books are obviously not getting excluded because they're too violent or too mature for kids. Even ban proponents are not arguing that; they're arguing that the books are "revisionist history", or that they're "propaganda", or that they're "unfair."
And yeah, that's pretty obviously an ideological ban and it's pretty obviously different from traditionally accepted categories of book bans around pornography and violence. We don't have to pretend that the motivations are a mystery; it is extremely clear why books on Rosa Parks and queer identity are getting banned from schools.
Is it understandable? I don't think I'd be alone in saying that I'm pretty uncomfortable with a book being banned from a public elementary school library just because it has a religious angle. I don't think it's a reasonable interpretation of separation of church and state to say it would require outright excluding religious books from a library.
"non-heteronormativity, non-cis identity, non-traditional gender roles, and non-Judeo-Christian books are targeted"
this feels like "I don't understand evolution, and I can't let my kids understand it" from Futurama, but it's about civil rights or the existence of ⓣⓗⓔ ⓖⓐⓨ~
In their data set they have 2,551 books in four categories:
Banned in Libraries and Classrooms, Banned in Libraries, Banned In Classrooms, Banned Pending Investigation,
If I filter out the "Banned Pending Legislation" entries, I get 1,164 books.
A “banned book” connotes censorship, and it is not censorship that a child’s library does not stock every book imaginable. If the government bans it in some way, then that would be a banned book. However, if it is available through retailers, how can you call it a “banned book”?
Public schools are operated by the government.
understand that even this is an exceptional use of the word. one wouldn't say that Medicare's decision to not cover prescription glasses amounts to Medicare banning prescription glasses. that shows that a "ban" can't be as simple as "government entity chooses not to provide thing that's within its purview". it's a pretty complicated word and using it outside of or even at the edges of its colloquial understanding is a guaranteed way to cause your audience to view you as dishonest.
Not really? I don't know, maybe I'm in a minority here but I don't think I am -- I'm not against providing additional context, additional context is often helpful. But I don't think this is an exceptional use of the word, and I think these are pretty clearly bans. I do not agree with that characterization of common usage, I suspect most people understand that bans can apply to specific scopes/situations.
I do think people are a little too cavalier sometimes about saying "it's not censorship if I agree with it or it's legal." We censor things sometimes. When we ban porn from a children's section in a library, that's censorship -- it's good censorship that we should be doing. People attach a lot of emotion to these words that maybe isn't appropriate or helpful to attach.
> government entity chooses not to provide thing that's within its purview
A government entity mandating that public schools may not provide a resource in their libraries is not "deciding not to cover" something, it is a restriction -- it's a ban. I sort of understand where you're coming from semantically, and if the only thing happening here was that librarians were choosing not to stock the books, I might agree with that semantic distinction. I don't think it would necessarily be a ban for a naturally limited space to not happen to have every single piece of content.
But that's not what's happening: schools, local governments, and state governments are barring their inclusion. The books are being specifically excluded from those spaces, regardless of whether or not the people tasked with maintaining those spaces want to include them. That's a ban.