Don't judge a book by its ban

The most fundamental right that United States citizens hold is the freedom to speak without infringement, according to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, school districts are taking it upon themselves to blatantly ignore this right by banning “objectionable” books from schools, restricting children’s worldview. 

“Pen America” is an organization that tracks the number of banned books across school districts in the U.S. They documented over 10,000 book bans from July 2021 to December 2023. The majority of them engage topics of race, LGBTQ+, gender identity, and women, topics traditionally repressed or disregarded in past decades. As a new wave of activism rose during quarantine in 2020, some in America have asserted their right to approve materials available in their children’s school libraries.

Many school districts banned, and continue to ban, hundreds of books from schools. They view their actions as protecting the children from being exposed to topics they deem inappropriate. However, this thinking creates a slippery slope. For example, districts may start by banning sexually explicit reading material from elementary schools. This action in itself is not controversial — except for two major points. The first is elementary schools rarely contain books with this kind of content, and the ones that do will inevitably arouse a reaction from angry parents threatening to drag the schools down through lawsuits and public discontent. The second is that once book bans start, individuals on the school board will see this as an opportunity to ban books that they themselves find uncomfortable. This happened in Escambia County, Florida, where 1,600 books were banned as of January 2024. The list included 8 encyclopedias, 5 dictionaries, the Guinness Book of World Records, Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, and, ironically, Fahrenheit 451. It is absurdly unlikely that a group of fewer than fifteen people have read 1,600 books and carefully considered their contents. This irresponsible behavior shows the pure ignorance of grown adults and their desperate attempts to gain control over the way children think. 

The modern world is rapidly changing. Social change, specifically, is happening faster than ever before. Young people must develop a broad understanding of the world through many different lenses. Banning books is a blatant way for conservative adults to hinder children’s growth. If such censorship continues without interference, it will spark a flame that will undermine the foundation of education in the U.S., and I fear that the future Ray Bradbury predicted over seventy years ago may just come true.