Book ban backlash: Utah parent successfully blocks Bible from schools

A Utah school district recently pulled the King James Bible from elementary and middle school libraries because of “vulgarity and violence”, several media reported.

The decision was taken after reviewing the Bible upon an anonymous request of a parent who criticized the “bad faith process” for reviewing books, according to KUTV.

“Now we can all ban books and you don’t even need to read them or be accurate about it,” wrote the person in the anonymous request, according to CNN. “Heck, you don’t even need to see the book”, they added.

2023 is on track to beat last year's record when it comes to book bans, according to the free speech group PEN America. During the current academic year, more than 800 books have been banned.

Last school year, 2021-2022, the nonprofit that advocates for free expression in literature, counted 1,648 books that were banned in U.S. schools, resulting in a total of more than 2,500 currently banned books, said PEN America.

Of the 1,648 titles that were banned last year, 41% explicitly address LGBTQ themes or have characters who are LGBTQ, while 40% address issues of race and racism, according to PEN Americas report.

About 22% of banned books include sexual content of varying kinds, like novels that portray sexual experiences of teenagers; stories about teen pregnancy, sexual assault and abortion; and informational books about puberty, sex or relationships. 

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161 banned titles (10%) have themes related to rights and activism and 141 titles (9 %) are either biography, autobiography, or memoir.

64 banned titles (4%) include characters and stories that reflect religious minorities, such as Jewish, Muslim and other faith traditions.

According to PEN America’s report, there are book bans in 138 school districts in 32 U.S. states. Texas is the state with the most bans (801), followed by Florida (566) and Pennsylvania (457).

The most banned titles include the groundbreaking work of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison (pictured), along with best-selling books that have inspired movies, such as ‘The Kite Runner’ by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini.

The top 3 banned titles per PEN America are: ‘Gender Queer: A Memoir’ by Maia Kobabe (banned in 41 districts); ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ by George M. Johnson (29 districts), and ‘Out of Darkness’ by Ashley Hope Pérez (24 districts).

Ashley Hope Pérez said in a news conference that what’s striking about her book being banned in 24 school districts is that it was published in 2015 and wasn’t challenged until last year.

Even though book bans in public schools have recurred throughout American history, the country has never seen as many book bans as now, according to several free speech advocates.

The numbers of banned books in schools are at a historic high, according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who has tracked and analyzed book bans across the country during more than two decades with the American Library Association (ALA).

The uptick, said Caldwell-Stone to CNN, is part of a culture war taking center stage in political races, on social media and at school board meetings.

Caldwell-Stone estimates that at least 40% of the bans listed on PEN America’s report are connected to proposed or enacted legislation or to political pressure from elected officials to restrict the teaching of certain concepts.

In Texas, for example, Republican state representative Matt Krause sent a letter and list with 850 books to school districts, asking them to investigate and report on which of the titles they held in libraries or classrooms and a rural county in Texas even considered closing public libraries, several media reported.

Photo: CBSDFW

Another major factor driving the expansion of book banning has been the amount of organized efforts to advocate for book removals, according to PEN America.

From local Facebook groups, to the conservative organization Moms for Liberty, a national-level non-profit, PEN America found at least 50 groups involved in pushing for book bans.

Many people believe that the book bannning is a political strategy. Writer Ashley Hope Pérez told The Guardian that the goal is to “stir up right-wing political engagement by drawing still brighter lines around targeted identities.” 

Pérez also said that when a student shares a gender or sexual identity with a character in a book and that book is banned, it “sends the message that stories about people like them are not fit for school.” 

“When school leaders cave to these pressures, they elevate the questionable judgment of a handful of parents over the professional discretion and training of librarians and educators and, above all, over the needs of students,” she added.

Photo: Nick Fewings

Be that as it may, an unintended consequence of book banning is that those titles become more popular, because many bookstores are able to market ‘banned books’ as a commercial appeal.

Photo: Spectrum News 1

According to market research data from the NPD Group, after a book was banned and made headlines, its sales spiked. This was true for ‘Gender Queer,’ ‘Antiracist Baby’, ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue,’ and ‘Maus,’ among others.

However, other authors, such as Judy Blume, assured NPR that most banned books don’t become more popular. To the contrary, several of them start to become forgotten.

Photo: Shiromani Kant/Unsplash