The Rise of Book Bans in US Public Libraries and the Threat they Pose to Democracy
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
This effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
– Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb (The Guardian 2021)
On January 6, 2021, rioters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election, an event that represented one of the biggest threats to democracy in American history. Amanda Gorman finished her poem The Hill We Climb that night; two weeks later, she stood in front of the Capitol building to recite it during the inauguration of President Joe Biden. While reflecting on a fractured democracy, she emphasized hope for unity: “the hill we climb if only we dare it”.
Gorman published her poem as a book for young readers, in part to inspire young people to find their voices. She made her words accessible to the millions of children who use public and school libraries. As laid out in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, the freedom to access knowledge is a right that defines democracy. Nancy Kranich puts it succinctly: “Libraries are the cornerstone of democracy”. With over a billion annual visits, libraries are one of the most visited US public service institutions, and indeed the only institutions in the US that make information and ideas freely accessible to everyone. This past spring, a school in Miami-Dade County, Florida voted to restrict access to Gorman’s poem in its libraries for elementary-aged students. The move came after a single complaint was made by a parent who argued that the poem “cause[d] confusion and indoctrinate[d] students”.
Book bans in the US are not new. Look at Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan in 1637, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1851, or even Margaret Sanger’s Family Limitation in 1873. By 1982, the issue made it to the Supreme Court after a New York City school district banned eleven books. Highlighting students’ First Amendment rights, the Court ruled that “local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books”. In recent years, however, book bans have resurged, even though most Americans oppose book bans in public libraries. According to the American Library Association (ALA), which tracks censorship in libraries, 2022 saw 1,269 attempted book bans – the most in two decades – of which sixty percent were made in school libraries and forty percent were made in public libraries. Most of these books deal with topics of race and LGBTQ identities, with titles including Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto (Waxman 2021). The movement fueling these bans has largely been led by small groups, particularly conservative organizations that focus on ‘parental rights’ (Creamer 2023). Brooke Stephens, the education director at Utah Parents United, argues that they aren’t ‘banning’ books since they are still available in bookstores but rather preventing children from accessing inappropriate material. Miami-Dade County used the same argument, clarifying that Gorman’s poem was not banned, since it remained available to older students. But, as Gorman argues, restrictions of any kind effectively act as bans. In her statement, Gorman decried the school’s decision: “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech”.
Libraries have emerged as the battleground for a much larger war on democracy, and as PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel warns, “by depriving a rising generation of the freedom to read, these bans are eating away at the foundations of our democracy”. As these restrictions increase, they are in danger of becoming the new normal. If Americans can take anything away from Gorman’s poem, they must act: this past summer, Illinois passed a bill to prohibit book bans in public libraries, the first of its kind. There is hope, “if only we’re brave enough to be it”.
Sources
Alter, Alexandra. 2021. “Amanda Gorman Captures the Moment, in Verse.” The New York TImes, January 19, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/books/amanda-gorman-inauguration-hill-we-climb.html.
American Library Association. 2022. “Large Majorities of Voters Oppose Book Bans and Have Confidence in Libraries,” March 24, 2022. https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2022/03/large-majorities-voters-oppose-book-bans-and-have-confidence-libraries.
Blakemore, Erin. 2023. “The History of Book Bans—and Their Changing Targets—in the U.S.” National Geographic, April 24, 2023. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/history-of-book-bans-in-the-united-states.
Creamer, Ella. 2023. “‘Eating Away at Democracy’: Book Bans in US Public Schools Rise by a Third in a Year.” The Guardian, September 22, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/22/democracy-book-bans-us-public-schools-rise.
Hall, Tracie D. 2023. “Attacks on Libraries Are Attacks on Democracy.” TIME, September 20, 2023, sec. TIME100 Voices. https://time.com/collection/time100-voices/6315724/banned-books-library-access/.
Halpert, Madeline. 2023. “Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Poem Moved by School after Parent’s Complaint.” BBC News, May 24, 2023. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65678970.
Harris, Elizabeth A., and Alexandra Alter. 2023. “Book Bans Are Rising Sharply in Public Libraries.” The New York TImes, September 21, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/books/book-ban-rise-libraries.html?searchResultPosition=13.
Holpuch, Amanda. 2023. “Florida School Restricts Access to Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Poem.” The New York TImes, May 24, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/biden-inauguration-poem-florida-ban-amanda-gorman.html.
Institute of Museum and Library Services. 2020. “People Visited Public Libraries More Than a Billion Times in One Year,” July 16, 2020. https://www.imls.gov/news/people-visited-public-libraries-more-billion-times-one-year.
Kranich, Nancy C. 2001. “Libraries, the Internet, and Democracy.” In Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstones of Liberty. American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/aboutala/sites/ala.org.aboutala/files/content/publishing/editions/samplers/kranich.pdf.
Mayorquin, Orlando. 2023. “To Fight Book Bans, Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans.” The New York TImes, June 13, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/illinois-book-bans-schools-public-libraries.html.
St. Martin, Emily. 2023. “Amanda Gorman on Her Inauguration Poem Being Banned at Miami School: ‘I Am Gutted.’” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-05-23/amanda-gormans-inaugural-poem-book-bans.
Sullivan, Margaret. 2022. “Book Bans Are Threatening American Democracy. Here’s How to Fight Back.” The Washington Post, August 9, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/08/09/banned-books-censorship-fight-back/.
The Guardian. 2021. “The Hill We Climb: The Amanda Gorman Poem That Stole the Inauguration Show,” January 20, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/amanda-gorman-poem-biden-inauguration-transcript.
Waxman, Olivia B. 2021. “‘We’re Preparing For a Long Battle.’ Librarians Grapple With Conservatives’ Latest Efforts to Ban Books.” TIME, November 15, 2021. https://time.com/6117685/book-bans-school-libraries/.
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