Censorship & Banned Books

Overview

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits Congress from passing laws that interfere with the exercise of free speech and a free press. However, throughout history, Americans have battled over what constitutes free speech, both spoken and written. They have also struggled to justify attempts to abridge rights of free speech and press when they contradict their own beliefs, values, and the right to control their children’s access to what they consider “suspect” material. Those actions have frequently led to efforts to censor and ban books. Legislators and courts have also been embroiled in efforts to define acceptable limits on speech and press, with efforts varying greatly according to geographic locations and prevalent social and political beliefs.

Censorship and the banning of books has long been associated with totalitarian tactics, since it is in the interest of totalitarian leaders to prevent the free flow of ideas. Nazi Germany continues to serve as one of the most notorious examples in which politicians had the freedom to censor any material that disagreed with the narrow viewpoints of National Socialism. Authorities arrested writers, publishers, bookstore owners, and librarians. Nazis particularly targeted works by Jewish writers and materials considered pro-communist. The major figures within the censorship movement were Martin Borman, Joseph Goebbels, and Alfred Rosenberg. In March 1933, Goebbels was named head of the newly established Ministry of Propaganda and charged with ensuring that only materials glorifying the Aryan race remained available on German bookshelves. Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany on June 30, 1933; and between 1933 and 1948, 4,175 books were banned. All published works by 564 authors were also banned. By the end of the war in 1945, 5,485 books had been banned because of alleged moral corruption, expression of Marxist views, support for pacifism, proposing of confessional ideas, or for failing to promote proper German ideals.

Western countries were not exempt from censorship and book banning. Britain has a long history of censoring books, and British law provided for the imprisonment of writers who violated obscenity laws. In the 1950s, four obscenity trials featuring Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, and Cyril Connolly led to three convictions. Predictably, sales of their novels soared as British readers purchased the books from France. A new law intended to strengthen existing limits on the publication of pornography was passed in 1959. While Liberals protested censorship, Conservatives objected to the mention of controversial subjects such as LGBTQ+ issues, explicit sex, abortion, and death penalty and divorce reform. In 1960, in a case that Geoffrey Robertson identifies as having major social and political consequences, writer D. H. Lawrence was acquitted of obscenity charges stemming from the publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The trial is considered instrumental in the waning of censorship and book banning in 1960s Britain.

There is also a lengthy history of censorship in the United States. In the nineteenth century, Boston became known for its book banning, and the phrase “banned in Boston” became a sure-fire way to increase book sales. In 1881, a seventh edition of Walt Whitman’s poetry collection Leaves of Grass was due to be published in Boston by James P. Osgood and Company. Whitman was well respected by established authors, including Mark Twain, Henry James, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter considered the book one of the most important pieces of American literature yet written. Whitman also had his share of critics who accused him of rejecting traditional rhyme schemes, lacking merit as a writer, and celebrating sexuality. Outraged, Suffolk County’s district attorney joined forces with Anthony Comstock and the New England Society for Suppression of Vice (which became the Watch and Ward Society in 1894) to ban Whitman’s book in Boston. Osgood withdrew publication after Whitman refused to remove the contested sections. Comstock, who was particularly interested in banning publications by free love advocates, including birth control information, had been responsible for enactment of the controversial Comstock Law of 1873, which prohibited the transfer of any material deemed obscene through the United States mail. Violations carried a $2000 fine and a five-year prison term.

In the early twentieth century, John Sumner carried on the battle begun by Anthony Comstock, and the Comstock Law continued to influence the censorship of books. Books that combined sex and religion were considered particularly taboo. Thus, one of the most frequently banned books of the period was Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry (1926), which follows the sexual misadventures of a Baptist minister-in-training, and Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925), which features the son of evangelists, Clyde Griffiths, who has a series of affairs before being electrocuted for the murder of one of his girlfriends. The Catholic Church prohibited the reading of classics such as Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. In the South, fundamentalist Protestants were determined to censor all books that taught Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The best known of these challenges was dealt with in July 1925 in what became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial (State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes), a case in which a high school biology teacher was tried for teaching evolution in violation of state law. The presence of nationally celebrated lawyer Clarence Darrow, who defended Scopes, and William Jennings Bryan, the leader of the anti-evolution group behind passage of the law, led to international interest in the case. It was not until 1983 in Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corporation that the Supreme Court officially rejected the right of the government to censor adult reading material as established in the Comstock Law.

The 1950s ushered in a period in which books that have since become part of the literary canon were banned in various locales, including William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, W. Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, and Faulkner’s Across the River and into the Trees. Even nonfiction books such as Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire were banned, as were the works of John Stuart Mill, Emile Zola, and Jean Paul Sartre.

In 1974, German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann published The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion—Our Social Skin, which asserts that individuals are frequently afraid to speak their opinions because they fear social isolation. As fewer people are willing to express opinions publicly, a vocal minority may come to represent majority opinion despite large numbers of people who disagree with the prevalent viewpoint. The spiral of silence theory has been used to explain why librarians and teachers frequently give in to demands for censorship and why communities do not always resist to attempts by minorities to ban books by particular writers or about specific subjects.

Applications

Censorship may take many forms, depending on the interests of the censor. While one popular conception of censors involves enraged parents attempting to protect the innocence of their children, publishers themselves may self-censor potentially controversial works by refusing to publish them. Unlike censorship by a government body or attempts by individuals or groups to enforce standards of decency or taste locally, a publisher’s decision to decline publication is generally made out of concern for the firm’s reputation or bottom line. Books that have been momentarily suppressed in this way include George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and W. Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil. Churches, particularly the Catholic Church and Protestant Evangelicals, have been involved in attempts to censor books on religious grounds. In the 1970s, libraries became embroiled in controversies resulting from attempts to censor material that was available for public consumption. Over the following decade, the focus of censorship was on materials dealing with health and family issues, including sex education books, and literature perceived as anti-religious. In the late 1990s, attention shifted to controlling online content, especially the thriving internet pornography industry, and in 1998 Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act, which sought to block access by minors to mature content. However, repeated challenges to the law prevented its enactment.

In the academic realm, books are generally challenged by principals, school boards, and either individual parents or parent groups. Overall, studies of school libraries in the United States and Canada show that librarians are likely to either remove challenged books or place them in restricted sections. In 2016, School Library Journal used data from a 2008 study to analyze censorship patterns among school librarians. SLJ found that nine out ten elementary and middle school librarians were likely to respond to challenges by self-censorship. Librarians may also self-censor by refusing to purchase books that have the potential to generate controversy. This has found to be particularly true of librarians who are new to their jobs and who are afraid to risk losing them. Instead of censoring books, some libraries have turned to content labeling. Since July 2021, the first year of its study, PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting free speech, recorded nearly 6,000 instances of banned books.

Reasons for censoring books have included racism, anti-Semitism, discussion of LGBTQ+ issues, occultism, controversial political views, questioning of religion, alleged anti-family viewpoints, being subversive, or containing age-inappropriate material on issues such as abortion, sex, drugs, and alcohol, bullying, death, gangs, war, child abuse, and euthanasia. After the Columbine shooting in 1999, both schools and parents became watchful about including books in school libraries that depict school violence. Alan Gratz notes that books have sometimes been banned for “silly” reasons. Such books include Harry Allard’s The Stupids Step Out (disobedience), Star Wars’ The Ewoks Join the Fight (destruction of the Death Star), Bruce Coville’s My Teacher Is an Alien (acting individually), and Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy (lying, cursing, and backtalking).

In 1982, the American Library Association (ALA) and Amnesty International began sponsoring Banned Book Week, which is held each September. Frequently banned books include the Bible; Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series; J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye; E. L. James’s Fifty Shades of Gray; Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia; John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men; Alice Walker’s The Color Purple; Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are; Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, and Deenie; Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series; Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series; and Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series.

One of the chief reasons for banning books throughout American history has been obscenity. American courts historically struggled to define obscenity, but a standard was finally established in 1973 in Miller v. California in which the Court established a three-prong test, holding that obscenity exists when the work as a whole appeals to the prurient interest as established by community standards, when the work describes sexual conduct in ways that violate states laws, and when the work taken as a whole lacks literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit. Responding to redefinitions of obscenity, the Supreme Court ruled in Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) that library books could not be censored on content alone. In 2002 in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, the Supreme Court held that the Child Online Protection Act, in seeking to impose restrictions using such a broad standard, was unconstitutional. The following year, in United States v. American Library Association, the Court upheld the authority of Congress to require schools receiving E-Rate discounts to mandate the use of filtering software on school devices. Also in 2003, in Counts v. Cedarville School District, a school board voted to restrict access to the Harry Potter series because the books encouraged disobedience and included witchcraft. The school library shelved the books out of view and required parental permission to check them out. The Court found that the school board's decision violated the First Amendment.

Discourse

The types of materials threatened with censorship may vary over time, while other books are consistently banned. From 2006 until 2010, the children’s picture book And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was among the most challenged library books because it told the story of two male penguins who hatch and raise a baby penguin together. Between 2009 and 2011, school libraries found that Lauren Myracle’s Internet Girls series was among the most challenged. Slangy and written in the argot of messaging, many teachers and librarians found that the books were useful in encouraging reading among reluctant readers. In response to frequent challenges to the books’ frank dealing with LGBT and other issues, middle-school libraries tended to ban the books to readers below eighth grade.

Fewer challenges to books occur in the Northeast than in other sections of the country. A survey of controversial books conducted by School Library Journal in 2016 found that 46 percent of challenges are generated in rural libraries, 42 percent in suburban libraries, and 32 percent in small towns. The study also found that 92 percent of challenges occurred among the parents of elementary-school students.

In a 2012 study, Natasha Isajlovic-Terry and Lynne McKechnie used a focus group of six children between the ages of nine and twelve to examine children’s views on censorship since most existing studies deal with the subject from an adult perspective. Isajlovic-Terry and McKechnie learned that the children were able to identify subjects that were not appropriate for their age group, and they generally accepted the right of parents to censor children’s reading materials. However, the children were adept at finding ways to bypass such censorship by sneaking books out, reading a book in secret, or asking an older sibling to obtain them. Knowing that a book had been banned encouraged these children to want to read it.

Headquartered in Chicago, the ALA continues to be a major force in protesting the censorship of books. ALA established the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) in December 1965 at a session of the ALA Midwinter Meeting to ensure that intellectual freedom would be well protected. Within two years of its founding, the ALA was dealing with 250 requests for assistance per month. Modern technologies have allowed the ALA to use a database to track all requests for assistance and identify books that are deemed to be the most controversial. This information is available on ALA’s website. Throughout its history, the ALA worked with like-minded groups such as the Freedom to Read Foundation and the Media Coalition to provide assistance to school librarians and teachers facing threats to ban books, assisting groups intent on challenging invitations to speakers considered unrepresentative of student/faculty interests, dealing with threats to library displays, and handling issues that surface over the content of electronic databases. The ALA also serves as a resource for librarians facing litigation over books or displays and offers training to librarians that includes publications, webinars, workshops, and speakers.

Following the culturally polarizing 2016 presidential election, the number of hate-motivated incidents in libraries increased. Such incidents include graffiti, property damage, and intimidation. In November 2016, the OIF began officially tracking such crimes, reporting that 68 percent occurred in public libraries, 20 percent in academic libraries, nine percent in special libraries, and three percent in school libraries. Hate crimes involving books and libraries continued long after the presidential election, however. For example, in 2020, a California library hosting a story hour, during which performers in drag read books to children, was interrupted by several members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, who hurled insults at the performers. LGBTQ and anti-extremist activists warned that threats from right-wing extremists had begun to increase.

In the early 2020s a major controversy emerged in the US over critical race theory (CRT), an interdisciplinary approach that examines how the social construct of race shapes, and is shaped by laws, media, political movements, and other aspects of society. At that time, many conservatives argued that CRT was divisive and opposed its inclusion in school curricula, and some Republican-controlled states enacted or attempted to enact laws banning CRT. Notably, in April 2022, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning CRT education in Florida schools. This conservative pushback against CRT energized some book-banning efforts, which often focused on books discussing racism, advocating anti-racism, or, at times, simply portraying characters of color.

This opposition to CRT occurred alongside a surge in book-banning efforts across schools in the US. A 2023 report from PEN America noted a sharp rise in individual book bans in US schools during the school year from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023; in total, they identified 3,362 instances of bans affecting 1,648 unique book titles. While the number of unique titles banned decreased during this period, the number of book-banning incidents increased by 33 percent over 2021–22. They found that roughly 30 percent of books banned in schools that year included LGBTQ+ themes, and 30 percent featured protagonists or secondary characters of color. For the 2023–24 school year, PEN America reported 10,046 instances of books being banned.

The PEN America report found that many of the advocacy groups backing these bans formed in 2021, were highly organized, and used a number of tactics, ranging from overwhelming school board meetings to filing criminal charges against school librarians and other staff, in order to force certain titles out of school libraries. During the 2022–23 school year, 87 percent of recorded book bans took place in school districts located near a chapter or affiliate of a national pro-ban advocacy group; 63 percent of bans happened in eight states with laws that either directly supported bans or enabled activists to review and challenge books in public libraries and schools. Another notable finding in the 2022–23 PEN America report was that most book bans occurred in a handful of states, with Florida school districts accounting for 40 percent of all ban cases in the United States, followed by Texas, Missouri, Utah, and Pennsylvania.

By the early 2020s, several states had passed legislation that allowed criminal prosecutions of librarians and public school staff for providing children with books categorized as harmful to minors, obscene, or sexually explicit. Several of the state laws imposed potential penalties of imprisonment and/or fines. Proponents of the laws argued that they were necessary to protect children's development and mental health, while opponents argued that such laws would censor books by and about LGBTQ+ authors.

In June 2023, the administration of President Joe Biden announced that it would name a book ban point person within the Department of Education's civil rights office to address the sharp increase in book bans across the country. That September, the department appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary Matt Nosanchuk, a longtime progressive organizer for the Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities who had previously served in the Obama administration, to the position. Nosanchuk was tasked with monitoring book bans and censorship efforts at the state and school district level, coordinating efforts to combat book bans, and training school and library staff how to handle them.

Bibliography

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