Why books get banned
People fear the impact of difficult books. They aren’t entirely wrong.
Campaigns to remove books from schools and libraries in the United States have increased dramatically in recent years. This book-banning frenzy has risen to such absurd heights that a recent headline read: “Florida rejects 41% of new math textbooks, citing critical race theory among its reasons.”
What’s behind this trend? Some progressive groups have lobbied to ban books that contain racial slurs, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. But most book-banning efforts are instigated by conservatives. Fueled by the rhetoric of elected officials, parents turn to national groups which encourage them to run for school and library boards with the intent to ban books they consider dangerous—from Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Toni Morrison’s Beloved to picture books that celebrate racial diversity or acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ people.
These campaigns are aimed not at strengthening public education but at weakening it. They are part of a broader movement fueled by billionaires, including the DeVos and Walton families, who have long sought to undermine traditional public schools—an ideological project and, for the for-profit companies that manage many charter schools, a lucrative one. The campaigns succeed not because Americans want their children’s education to be shaped by oligarchs but because they exploit people’s fear and mistrust. Some parents don’t trust teachers with novels that address our country’s history of racism. Others fear that books about inequality will cause their children psychological anguish or undermine their faith in American institutions.
