According to a recent research by PEN America, a nonprofit group working for free expression, Texas banned more books from school libraries this year than any other state in the US, focusing on titles centred on race, racism, abortion, and LGBTQ representation and concerns.
According to the research, school authorities in Texas banned 801 books across 22 school districts between July 2021 and June 2022, with 174 titles prohibited at least twice. PEN America defines a ban as any action taken against a book based on its content following challenges from parents or lawmakers. According to a new analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit organisation advocating for free speech, Texas banned more books from school libraries this past year than any other state in the country, targeting titles centred on race, racism, abortion, and LGBTQ representation and issues.
According to the research, school authorities in Texas banned 801 books across 22 school districts between July 2021 and June 2022, with 174 titles prohibited at least twice. A ban, according to PEN America, is any action taken against a book based on its content in response to parental or legislative complaints.
“Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which chronicles Kobabe’s journey of gender identity and sexual orientation; “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison; and “Roe v. Wade: A Woman’s Choice?
” by Susan Dudley Gold; “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, which chronicles a love tale in 1930s East Texas between a Mexican American adolescent girl and a Black teen boy; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a personal account of growing up black and queer in Plainfield, New Jersey.
“This censorious movement is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, driving schisms within communities, evicting teachers and librarians, and casting a chill over the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpins a flourishing democracy,” PEN America’s chief executive officer, Suzanne Nossel, said in a statement.
PEN America discovered that 1,648 distinct titles have been banned by schools across the country. 41% of these titles discuss LGBTQ topics or feature LGBTQ protagonists or major supporting characters. Another 40% of these works have black protagonists or major minor characters.
Summer Lopez, PEN America’s lead programme officer for free speech, said that the majority of these book bans target novels that families and children can choose to read rather than mandated reading.
Florida and Pennsylvania were the states with the most prohibitions, followed by Texas. Florida banned 566 books, while Pennsylvania banned 457 titles, with the bulk of books taken from one school district in York County, which is recognised for being more conservative.
Lopez stated that her group could not recall a year with that many reported book bans.
“This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in an increasing number of students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” said Jonathan Friedman, the report’s lead author and director of PEN America’s free expression and education programmes.
The origins of Texas’ book challenges can be traced back to last October, when state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, submitted a list of 850 books regarding race and sexuality — including Kobabe’s — to school districts, asking for information on how many of them were available on their campuses. This one action prompted parents to fight and successfully remove publications they deemed inappropriate and “pornographic.”
After a group of parents protested that it was “pornographic,” the Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County was among the first to successfully remove “Gender Queer” from school libraries.
This current wave of book bans has occurred against the backdrop of a national discussion over critical race theory, a college-level academic subject that investigates how racism is rooted in the country’s legal and structural structures. It is not taught in public schools in Texas. Conservative politicians and parents, on the other hand, have used the word “CRT” to disparage initiatives in public schools to embrace a more broad and inclusive public school curriculum, which they see as indoctrination.
Conservatives in certain school districts have exploited book bans and squabbles over social studies curriculum to mobilise support and raise unprecedented funds to gain school board seats by promising to remove “critical race theory” and “pornographic” materials from classrooms. In the midst of ongoing Republican-led political battles over how race, gender, and sex problems are taught in public schools, Gov. Greg Abbott has made increasing parental rights a centrepiece of his reelection agenda.
Texas parents, on the other hand, already have the ability to remove their child from a class or activity that violates their religious convictions. They have the right to evaluate all teaching materials, and state law provides them with access to their student’s records as well as to the school principal or administrator. In addition, school boards must have a procedure for dealing with parent complaints.
According to PEN America’s research, these prohibitions have been mostly motivated by organised groups founded in the last year to battle “pornographic” and “CRT” materials in schools.
“The activity of organisations coordinating and campaigning for book bans in schools is especially destructive to children from historically underprivileged backgrounds, who are forced to witness tales that validate their experiences disappear from classrooms and library shelves,” Friedman said.
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