Book Banning

The Authors Guild advocates for the rights of professional writers to create, publish, and earn a sustainable living as fiction and nonfiction writers, poets, translators, and journalists. Book banning, whether challenged by the right or the left, interferes with those rights, not only by suppressing free speech and freedom of expression but by making it harder for authors to sell copies of their work.

Book Bans Reach Record Highs

According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of books challenged in schools and public libraries hit a record high in 2023, with 4,240 unique titles targeted for censorship—a 65 percent increase over the 2,571 unique titles targeted in 2022. This is in part because national groups have compiled lists of books to be challenged rather than allowing books to be challenged on an individual basis. In 17 states, there were attempts to censor more than 100 books.

State laws are also causing books to be banned. According to PEN America, in 2023, 110 bills were introduced that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how K-12 teachers can discuss racism and sexism; ten of them became law. A number of these bills are modeled after Florida’s H.B. 1557, commonly known as the Don’t Say Gay Act. Four of them apply to private schools or colleges. Legislatures are even attempting to criminally penalize librarians for providing certain books to minors.

Both individual libraries and entire library systems are being put at risk as these bans escalate. In 2024, a small Idaho library went “adults only” in response to a new state book banning law. In 2022, a Michigan town defunded its library for refusing to remove certain LGBTQIA+ books. In Llano County, Texas, a number of books were accused of being “pornographic” and removed from the public library system; when seven Llano County residents sued, the court stated that a number of these books also dealt with “critical race theory” and racial themes. In response to the court’s order to restore the removed books to the library shelves while the litigation was pending, Llano County commissioners held a meeting to discuss closing the library. And in Missouri, the state House of Representatives voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries, apparently in reaction to litigation filed on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association. That lawsuit seeks to declare unconstitutional a state bill that has resulted in more than 300 books, many of which include LGBTQIA+ characters or racial justice themes, being banned from school libraries.

No matter one’s political beliefs, we should be able to come together to support free speech and a healthy public library system.

Fighting Back Against Book Bans

The Authors Guild, along with other free speech organizations and individuals, recently became a plaintiff in litigations to strike down legislation in Florida, Arkansas, and Texas that would unconstitutionally limit access to certain books based on their subject matter or characters as well as limit the ability of authors from underserved communities to have their voices heard by younger readers. Enforcement of the Arkansas and Texas laws has been preliminarily enjoined and the Florida lawsuit is in its early stages, but there are pending bills in other states that could become law that also need guarding against.

The federal government, through the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, is also working to protect students from having their educations negatively impacted by book bans. For example, the office could get involved when students feel like they can no longer use or benefit from school libraries because prohibitions against books that address (or even mention) characters and issues that students relate to make them feel unwelcome. The Department of Education will investigate complaints from anyone about book bans that create a hostile learning environment for students.

Click Here to Read Our Principle Against Book Banning as Voted on by the Authors Guild Council

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