2023–The Year in Censorship

This is the third December we’ve chronicled the year in censorship, and while book banners are still going strong, organized pushback is growing too.

Intellectual freedom advocates are taking their fights to court and seeking to enshrine protections in state and federal law, along with awareness campaigns and local advocacy in schools and public libraries.

Book bans remain at an all-time high, according to multiple chroniclers. PEN America’s most recent tally found a 33 percent increase in school bans in the 2022-23 school year, with more than 1,500 titles affected. The American Library Association tallied challenges to more than 1,900 titles during the first eight months of 2023, with nearly half of those in public libraries.

Public libraries also experienced record threats this year, including stripped budgets and a string of bombthreats. Soft censorship – when librarians or teachers pre-emptively censor titles, refrain from booking authors they deem controversial, or ask those authors not to talk about specific titles – is rising as well, as documentedin another PEN America survey.

The battle over laws aiming to restrict what young people can read has made it to the courtroom in several states, including Texas, Florida and Iowa.

In Texas, booksellers paired with free-speech advocates to challenge a new state law that would require vendors to rate books on sexually explicit content. Opponents argue the law’s prohibitions are vague and broad, making it impossible to comply. It’s an assertion supported by a district judge, who issued a temporary injunction blocking the law from taking effect. As of this writing, the case is awaiting its next round of judgment, from a federal appellate court that heard arguments in late November.

PEN America sued the school district and board in Florida’s Escambia County in May, charging that book removals there violate students’ First Amendment rights as well as the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The suit’s plaintiffs also include publisher Penguin Random House, district parents, and authors and illustrators of books for young readers. They maintain that the disproportionate targeting of books by and about non-white and/or LGBTQ people constitutes blatant attempts to stigmatize.

“Young readers in Escambia schools and across the nation deserve a complete and honest education, one that provides them with full access in libraries to a wide range of literature that reflects varied viewpoints and that explores the diversity of human experiences,” said Out of Darkness author Ashley Hope Pérez. “As a former public high school English teacher, I know firsthand how important libraries are. For many young people, if a book isn’t in their school library, it might as well not exist.”

The case is winding its way through the courts, having added more parent plaintiffs and removed the school district to respond to an even newer Florida law that state officials claim renders the lawsuit moot.

Iowa faces two censorship lawsuits over a recently passed state law that requires K-12 schools to stock only “age-appropriate” books and eschew those with any sexual content. Penguin Random House filed suit in November, a few days after Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Iowa and the law firm Jenner & Block LLP.  As in Florida, educators and authors noted the broad statements and harsh penalties as problems with the Iowa law, which they argue violates the First and Fourteenth amendments.

Joining the Penguin Random House Iowa suit are four bestselling authors whose books have fallen prey to censors, including Jodi Picoult. She embraced anti-censorship advocacy in earnest this year after Florida schools removed 20 of her books, including a Holocaust-themed novel.

Grassroots groups like Florida Freedom to Read Project and Texas FReadom Fighters continue to organize against book complaints that often come from self-styled “joyful warriors” Moms for Liberty. New this year is the Texas Freedom to Read Project, launched in December and already organizing advocacy at the state and local levels.

Conservative targeting of Scholastic book fairs intensified this year. Brave Books, a publisher claiming to support “traditional American values” backed by former Growing Pains star and current right-wing Christian Kirk Cameron, launched public library story hours and then a subsequent moral panic about titles available at the Scholastic fairs.

In November, Brave Books’ fair division apparently morphed into SkyTree Book Fairs, which–surprise!–positions itself as an alternative to Scholastic. BookRiot’s Kelly Jensen broke this and dozens of other censorship stories over the last couple of years. It’s fitting that the American Association of School Libraries honored her this year for her ongoing coverage.

Scholastic created its own issues this fall after shifting dozens of its titles by and about marginalized communities into a separate collection for its fairs. The company – the largest publisher of children’s books in the world – said it created the “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice” collection to help schools comply with censorious state laws. It backtracked after a massive outcry from authors and anti-censorship advocates, stating it would discontinue the collection after fall fairs concluded.

In November, the company announced that all of the titles would be re-integrated into the catalog for spring fairs. The online preview will be “enhanced” to help schools choose titles, and fair hosts will make final decisions on what gets sold, it said.

State laws haven’t all been pro-censorship. California and Illinois legislatures both passed laws banning book bans this past year.

And in the latest salvo at the federal level, three Democrats in Congress introduced the Fight Book Bans Acton Dec. 5. The proposal, from Florida’s Maxwell Frost and Frederica Wilson and Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, would provide Department of Education grants to reimburse school districts for costs connected to censorship fights.

“Book bans in Florida and in states across the nation are a direct attack on our freedoms and liberties everywhere,” Frost posted Dec. 5 on X, adding that the bill will “protect the history and truth of our Black, brown, Hispanic, and LGBTQ+ communities.”