The most infamous book burning in the 20th century took place in the 1930s as the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in Germany. On May 10, 1933, university students burned more than 25,000 books in Berlin’s Opera Square that did not align with Nazi ideals. College students from universities across Germany followed suit. Both public and university libraries were ransacked. The books taken were used to fuel huge bonfires that were often accompanied by marshal music and “fire oaths” denouncing anyone whose thoughts, lifestyle, or beliefs were deemed “un-German.” It was the beginning of a period of extreme state-sponsored censorship and cultural control.
This trend continues today as conservative activists target expressions of diversity in the classroom and/or libraries. For example, in Williamson County, Tennessee, a rich white suburb of Nashville, local “Moms for Liberty” group has been actively pushing for a purge of anything they don’t like. This has included demonstrations and disruptions against minimal health protections during the pandemic.
The chapter has grabbed headlines for belligerent protests at school board meetings. They have attacked a high school LGBTQ pride float – one tweet wondered if students passing out pride literature were doing "recruitment." And another meeting featured a tirade by a Moms For Liberty member against a children's book about the lives of seahorses, which she said was too sexual.
Moms For Liberty says the Williamson County Schools curriculum violates state law because it includes "anti-American, anti-White and anti-Mexican teaching."
In May, Gov. Bill Lee signed HB 580, a law aimed at banning so-called critical race theory from schools. Educators argue that critical race theory is not taught or included in the K-12 curriculum and is usually an elective class in college or law school.
Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students "feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish."
(Evan McMorris-Santoro and Meridith Edwards. “Tennessee parents say some books make students 'feel discomfort' because they're White. They say a new law backs them up.” CNN. September 29, 2021.)
To such white conservatives, any instruction of the lives and history of people of color (POC), especially Black people, is illegitimate social engineering. It is an attempt to shame their precious white children and that cannot be allowed. So the Moms for Liberty have pushed to purge not only fiction that depicts such experiences of POC but also any history of it.
(“Banning Books to Control History.” Adventures in Censorship Contesting the Right to Read. September 29, 2021.)
And now, a Texas Republican lawmaker has drawn up a list of 850 books on subjects ranging from racism to sexuality that could “make students feel discomfort,” and is demanding that school districts across the state report whether any are in their classrooms or libraries.
State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, also wants to know how many copies of each book the districts have and how much money they spent on them, according to a letter he sent Monday to Lily Laux, deputy commissioner of school programs at the Texas Education Agency, and several school district superintendents.
Krause, who chairs the state’s House Committee on General Investigating, also directed the districts to identify “any other books” that could cause students “guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
Krause did not explain in the letter exactly why he was seeking this information, but his investigation came just months after Texas lawmakers tried to ban critical race theory from school campuses.
The book list includes well-known titles like the Pulitzer Prize-winning William Styron novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner and best-sellers that were turned into movies or television series, such as John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, Alan Moore’s dystopian V For Vendetta, and the graphic novel version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
The list of books also includes titles from Black writers, such as Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall.
Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which, among other things, made the case that Nazi Germany modeled its anti-Semitic policies on the segregation of Black people in the United States, also made Krause’s list.
Also on the list are books about abortion and homosexuality, such as LGBT Families by Leanne K. Curry-McGhee and Michael J. Basso’s The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality: An Essential Handbook for Today’s Teens and Parents.
Krause's list also includes a book that was a hit with conservative readers, namely Eyes on Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs by Scott McEwen and Richard Miniter.
(Corky Siemaszko. “Texas lawmaker says 850 books ranging from race to sexuality could cause 'discomfort.'” NBC News. October 27, 2021.)
Banning Books – A Little History
Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States, with children’s literature being the primary target. Most challenges and bans prior to the 1970s focused primarily on obscenity and explicit sexuality.
However, even literary classics, including Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, have been targeted. Challenges have also been made against J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and even the American Heritage Dictionary.
The implications of challenging and removing the dictionary from any library, let alone a school library, are almost too staggering to contemplate. However, both American Heritage and Merriam Webster have been banned in various libraries and schools. In 1987, for example, the Anchorage School Board banned the American Heritage Dictionary for its "objectionable" entries – particularly slang words, including "bed," "knocker," and "balls."
According to The First Amendment Encyclopedia presented by the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies, although censorship violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, some limitations are constitutionally permissible. The courts have told public officials at all levels that they may take community standards into account when deciding whether materials are obscene or pornographic and thus subject to censor.
They cannot, however, censor publications by generally accepted authors — such as Mark Twain, for example, J. K. Rowling, R. L. Stine, Judy Blume, or Robert Cormier — in order to placate a small segment of the community.
The Supreme Court in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) ruled 5-4 that public schools can bar books that are “pervasively vulgar” or not right for the curriculum, but they cannot remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” The Court’s decision was, however, narrow, applying only to the removal of books from school library shelves.
(Susan L. Webb. “Book Banning.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. 20009.)
Opponents of bans argue that by restricting information and discouraging freedom of thought, censors undermine one of the primary functions of education: teaching students how to think for themselves. Such actions, assert free speech proponents, endanger tolerance, free expression, and democracy.
Debating Bans
Parents, teachers, school librarians, administrators, school boards – all have a charge and an obligation to protect students in public schools from books with inappropriate content or certain adult themes; however, assess to books is a basic human right. Schools must celebrate reading and promote open access to ideas, both of which are keys to raising a lifelong reader. Fear is always the driver behind the attempts to ban books, and often his fear is irrational and unjustifiable. Lately, much of the fear is driven by political control and narrow-minded censorship.
Consider LGBTQ literature. It was completely absent from school libraries and public libraries and school curriculum until fairly recently even though recent polls (Gallup, 2021) say a record number of U.S. Adults – 5.6% – identify as LGBTQ. Perhaps even more revealing – between 2015 and 2019, the percentage of 15- to 17-year-olds who said they identified as "non-heterosexual" rose from 8.3% to 11.7%, according to nationwide surveys by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sibal Durand, expert in censorship in young-adult literature says …
“The most commonly censored topics in literature for young adults tend to relate to sexuality and offensive language, with the argument that literature that includes sexually explicit scenes, LGBTQLesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and either questioning or queer. characters, and language that is deemed offensive is inappropriate for the age of the intended audience. This stance largely underestimates or ignores that many young people identify as LGBTQ, are sexually active, and often curse in their daily lives, and that literature simply reflects these realities …
“I imagine that the persistence of book banning and censoring has something to do with adults having a limited understanding of the realities that many young people face in their daily lives. When people challenge books, their argument is often that these books convey ideas that they do not think are appropriate for youth to learn.
“However, banning a book from a library or curriculum implies that some ideas and experiences are valuable or worthy of discussion and others are not. It reinforces one particular way of thinking and limits others, which might not accurately reflect the lived realities of youth.”
(Emma Greguska. “At the start of national Banned Books Week, professors James Blasingame and Sybil Durand discuss issues in Q&A.” Arizona State University News. September 25, 2016.)
In the case of banning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and either questioning or queer characters in books – the stance largely underestimates or ignores that many young people identify as LGBTQ, are sexually active, and that literature simply reflects these realities.
So, the point is that when you ban a book, you may be hurting someone. These students are being told that their existence doesn’t count. Books are a portal to different life experiences and reading encourages empathy and social-emotional development. Think of it – the statistics put the young LGBTQ population at nearly 12%. That is massive “hurt.”
The National Coalition against Censorship explained that “Even books or materials that many find ‘objectionable’ may have educational value, and the decision about what to use in the classroom should be based on professional judgments and standards, not individual preferences.”
To close, many frequently challenged books help people get a better idea of the world and their place in it. Consider students who oppose the gay lifestyle … even openly display hatred for their fellow LGBTQ classmates. A study found that reading narrative fiction helps readers understand their peers and raised social abilities. Those books about alternate lifestyles can actually build empathy and understanding.
(Keith Oakley et al. “Bookworms versus nerds: Exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds.” Journal of Research in Personality Volume 40, Issue 5, October 2006, Pages 694-712.)
Understanding others’ mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies. In another study, Kidd and Castano provide experimental evidence that reading passages of literary fiction, in comparison to nonfiction or popular fiction, does indeed enhance the reader's performance on theory of mind tasks. That research supports the idea that reading literary fiction enhances a set of skills and thought processes fundamental to complex social relationships – and functional societies.
(David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano. “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind.” Science 18 Oct 2013 • Vol 342, Issue 6156.)
"Just as in real life, the worlds of literary fiction are replete with complicated individuals whose inner lives are rarely easily discerned but warrant exploration."
– Kidd and Castano
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