Book censorship still occurs in American schools

An Alaskan school board’s decision to remove several classics of American literature — including works by Maya Angelou, Ralph Ellison, and F. Scott Fitzgerald — from its curriculum is drawing newfound attention to censorship in schools. The Mat-Su Borough School District said it decided this because the books contained content that could harm students.

High school curriculum stalwarts The Great Gatsby, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and Invisible Man are all among the books the board voted 5 to 2 to remove on April 22. One school board member told The New York Times that he voted in favor of removing the books to give parents more “freedom, control, and involvement” in the material to which their children are exposed.

Experts say censorship of reading material in schools happens more than many people realize. “Books get removed and challenged for all kinds of reasons,” Nora Pelizzari, the director of communications at the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), told the FBomb. Common reasons books are challenged are because they contain violence, sexual themes, or, in the case of books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, racial slurs and other types of offensive language.

“This story is getting a lot of traction because of the particular books involved; they are classics of the American literary canon,” said Pelizzari. “But I think that it is important to note that books get removed from schools all of the time.”

University of Pennsylvania professor Jonathan Zimmerman has written several books on the history of censorship in schools in the United States. “If you look at the history of book banning, historically it is across the [political] spectrum,” Zimmerman told the FBomb. While many think of activists working to limit access to books as being mostly politically conservative, “it has also come from Democrats. It has come from people of color.”

At the center of most book censorship is the desire of adults to prevent children and teens from being shown themes they believe are too mature for them, said Zimmerman. “One of the great myths of the censor is that they say kids are innocent,” he said. “But it is not about protecting kids. It is about the anxiety of the parents.”

That anxiety about sexuality is why young adult novels and books with LGBTQ characters have often become the target of censors. “There has been a huge rise in an attempt to remove books with LGBTQ themes and characters and issues from schools and libraries all across the country” since same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015, said Pelizzari.

But teens and families who see their reading lists censored do have options, said Pelizarri. “They should attend school board meetings, they should write letters to school board members and organize students,” she said. “Students should stand up for their rights, and they should frame it as their right to read and their right to learn and their right to encounter ideas that they might not get to encounter otherwise.”