More than 10,000 books were banned in US public schools from 2023 to 2024, according to a report, marking a stark increase over the year before as Republican-led states pass new censorship laws.
The survey from PEN America suggested that bans of books nearly tripled nationwide, from 3,362 the previous year.
At least 13 titles were banned for the first time, including Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which describes the journey of an enslaved person from Africa to the US, and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, the acclaimed semi-autographical work set in Harlem, New York.
PEN America, a non-profit organization dedicated to freedom of expression, said that approximately 8,000 instances of book bans took place in Florida and Iowa, as both states enforced sweeping laws targeting classroom material.
“State legislation was also particularly critical in accelerating book bans, making it easier to remove books from schools without due process, or in some cases, without any formal process whatsoever,” PEN America said.
Iowa’s law, signed in 2023, bans material about sexual orientation and gender identity before seventh grade. The legislation also explicitly bans books depicting sexual acts from K-12 libraries and classrooms.
In Florida, any book challenged for including “sexual conduct” is pulled while under review. Such guidelines have led to a sharp increase in book bans, PEN America reported.
Both states have faced lawsuits over the controversial laws.
Major publishers, LGBTQ+ teachers, students and parents sued to have Iowa’s law permanently overturned. But a federal appeals court overturned a temporary injunction on Iowa’s book bans, allowing the law to continue taking effect. Additional legal proceedings are expected.
Six prominent book publishers are also suing Florida over its “unconstitutional” book ban after hundreds of their titles were pulled from school libraries.
Utah, South Carolina and Tennessee have all recently enacted book bans as well. Utah, in particular, has one of the “most extreme” bills, PEN America said, referring to the law HB 29, which says a book must be pulled from all schools in the state if at least three districts have found the title to be “objectively sensitive material”.
Book bans have continued to overwhelmingly target stories focused on LGBTQ+ people and people of color, according to PEN America.
“In part due to the targeting of sexual content, the stark increase includes books featuring romance, books about women’s sexual experiences, and books about rape or sexual abuse as well as continued attacks on books with LGBTQ+ characters or themes, or books about race or racism and featuring characters of color,” it said.
It said it would release a final count on the number of banned books in the autumn.
Meanwhile, legal action has helped restore books in some municipalities. One Florida county brought back 36 books that were previously purged after settling a lawsuit from a coalition of parents, students and authors.
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