- Book bans largely targeting race- and LGBTQ titles were carried out in 26 states, PEN America says.
- The bans in school libraries and classrooms affect 1,145 unique book titles.
- The 713 bans in Texas account for nearly half of the 1,586 book bans nationwide.
Nearly 1,600 book bans largely targeting race- and LGBTQ-related titles were carried out in school districts across the country during the last nine months, with Texas leading the way, a new report found.
The report from PEN America, a literary and free expression organization, identified 1,145 unique titles affected by the bans in school libraries and classrooms in 26 states as controversial books in schools have become a common flashpoint in political culture wars over the teaching of race, gender and sexuality.
The top three banned titles focus on LGBTQ+ individuals or touch on same-sex relationships: "Gender Queer," "All Boys Aren't Blue," and "Lawn Boy."
PEN America described a dramatic escalation in school book bans — defined actions that lead to removing, restricting, or diminishing access to books, based on objections to their content — after previously seeing only a handful of such cases each year.
"What is happening in this country in terms of banning books in schools is unparalleled in its frequency, intensity, and success," said Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America's Free Expression and Education program and lead author of the report. "Because of the tactics of censors and the politicization of books we are seeing the same books removed across state lines: books about race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, and sex most often."
The 713 bans in Texas — where conservative politicians have waged war against books on racism and sexuality — account for nearly half of the 1,586 book bans nationwide. Some banning efforts may be the result of state Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican, launching an investigation in October into Texas school district content, inquiring about 850 books, the report says. School districts in Granbury and San Antonio removed titles on Krause's list.
—Christopher Tackett (@cjtackett) January 27, 2022
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, called for criminal charges against anyone providing "pornography" books to students.
"In too many instances, you have left-wing educators putting explicit pornography in front of kids," Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, told Insider in February. "I think that is severely misguided."
The number of Texas bans is followed by those in Pennsylvania (456), Florida (204), Oklahoma (43), Kansas (30), Indiana (18), Virginia (16), and Tennessee (16), where the McMinn County Board of Education drew attention in January for removing the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, about the holocaust, from its 8th-grade language arts curriculum.
Many of the book bans — 41 percent — are tied to directives from state officials or elected lawmakers to investigate or remove books in schools, marking an "unprecedented shift" from community members initiating the demand, the report says.
The bans were widespread, according to the report, occurring in 86 school districts in 26 states between July 1, 2021, and March 31 of this year. The districts represent 2,899 schools with a combined enrollment of more than 2 million students.
The figures represent cases either reported directly to PEN America or covered in the media.
Of the books that were banned, 22% directly address issues of race and racism while 33% explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+.
The 42 children's books that were "censored" include biographies of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Ruby Bridges, Duke Ellington, Katherine Johnson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cesar Chavez, Sonia Sotomayor, Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai.
PEN America says 98% of the bans and restrictions involve "departures from best practice guidelines for how school authorities may remove books," occurring without proper written forms, review committees or transparency.
"This is an orchestrated attack on books whose subjects only recently gained a foothold on school library shelves and in classrooms," Friedman said in a statement. "We are witnessing the erasure of topics that only recently represented progress toward inclusion."