🌊 Are Book Bans Real?

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Are Book Bans Real?

Roca spoke to leaders on both sides to understand what a “book ban” is and where and why they’re happening.

On April 25, 2023, President Biden released a video announcing his re-election campaign.

In it, he claimed that “MAGA extremists” are “lining up to take on…bedrock freedoms.” He cited three examples: Cutting social security, restricting abortion access, and banning books.

Two days later, a Biden campaign official told Politico that book bans would be central to the president’s re-election platform. A Democratic pollster explained why: “Book banning tests off the charts.”

But are books actually being banned? 

PEN America, a century-old nonprofit that campaigns to defend free speech in literature, defines a book ban as “any action taken against a book based on its content” that leads access to that book to be cut off or otherwise “diminished.”

According to that definition, PEN counts 10,243 books that were banned from American school curriculums and libraries between 2021 and 2023. The organization says an additional 30 state laws and ten executive orders or state regulations limit what teachers can say about certain topics, thereby limiting more books. 

Not everyone agrees with PEN’s definition: Some argue it counts non-banning activities –  including age restrictions or relocating books in a library – as bans. Others argue that even if a book is removed from a classroom or school library, it isn’t “banned.” Students can still obtain it at non-school libraries, bookstores, or online.

Efforts to restrict access to books are not new: In the 1980s, conservative activists sought to ban satanic content in schools; in the early 2000s, some groups targeted Harry Potter for promoting witchcraft. Liberal activists, meanwhile, have gone after Mark Twain, Dr. Seuss, and Roald Dahl for allegedly racist content.

But the Biden administration says a new book banning effort is underway, and PEN says that can be traced to January 2021 – the month a group of conservative women launched “Moms for Liberty” (M4L).

M4L was created to oppose mask mandates for their children. While doing so, though, the group started paying attention to what their kids were learning. One of the group’s founders said that when the “world went virtual, it opened a window for parents into what was being taught, the curriculum and teacher-parent relationships.”

The group’s mandate soon broadened to include issues such as curriculums and classroom discussions of race, LGBT, and sexual assault. By 2023, M4L counted 285 chapters with 120,000 members across 44 states.

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