The wave of conservative censorship hitting American schools has never been stronger, and Donald Trump's re-election in 2024 is doing nothing to improve matters. Last year, more than 10,000 books were removed from school libraries (around 4,200 items), primarily children's books addressing gender, racism, or LGBTQ+ issues.
Banning books, at what cost?
Since 2021, the United States has faced an unprecedented increase in book bans in public schools. According to PEN America, more than 10,000 cases of bans were recorded during the last school year alone. This wave of censorship, led by conservative groups and encouraged by the Trump administration since his return to the White House, targets a very specific type of works. 57% of banned books address topics related to sex or sexuality, 44% feature people of color, and 39% feature LGBTQ+ characters. Florida, Iowa, Texas, and Wisconsin are among the most active states in this movement, with thousands of titles banned locally. The recent banning of Julianne Moore's book, Freckleface Strawberry, illustrates the national reach of censorship, for a story that was intended to promote self-acceptance.
Which books are affected?
In 2023, we noted the censorship of Gender Queer: A memoir, which traces the non-binary nature of its author, Maia Kobabe, and This Book Is Gay, by Juno Dawson. Other more illustrious literary figures have also been banned. Since 2023, Frank Herbert's Dune books have been banned from public places in Collier County, Florida, under the pretext of complying with HB1069, which can censor a work if it depicts or describes sexual conduct. The situation is similar for Game of Thrones, Forrest Gump, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Invisible Man, Anna Karenina, and George Orwell's 1984, which was banned in May 2023 throughout Iowa. Animal Farm, Brave New World and The Picture of Dorian Gray have been removed from school libraries for the same reasons.
The ten books most affected by this censorship are:
- Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
- Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- Crank and Identical by Ellen Hopkins
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Very real consequences
This wave of censorship is not without consequences: it deprives millions of students of access to essential stories, including some dystopias that very freely echo current political excesses. Some cultural venues are self-censoring for fear of reprisals, while some states are even going so far as to criminalize refusal to remove books targeted by the ban. Fahrenheit 451 is not so far away, and those worried about the height of conservative extremism in The Handmaid’s Tale will have to read the book under the table.
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