March 18, 2025
By Jacob Collins Dodd
Staff Writer
If you keep up with politics, you are likely aware of the overt attack against literature by the Republican Party in the United States. Between July 2021 and December 2023, the Florida Department of Education banned over 3,135 books across 11 school districts, which is the highest of any state in the country.
According to PEN America, a nonprofit organization supporting free expression, lawmakers banned over 10,000 books during the 2023-2024 school year.
Some frequently banned books in America include “1984” by George Orwell and “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, both of which are cautionary tales addressing authoritarianism and excessive governmental power. Another frequently banned book is “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, a young adult novel about police brutality against a Black teenager.
The recent wave of book banning demonstrates how the censorship of history, literature and truth limits education.
This banning of literature is a calculated attempt to instill bigotry and ignorance in Americans instead of acceptance and diversity.
Almost all of the recently censored books address racial discrimination, LGBTQ+ issues and sexual content. According to PEN America data from the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, books about race and racism and books that feature characters of color made up 37% of all book bans. Books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes were present in 36% of the banned books, and 19% of the banned books address rape and sexual assault.
Following the murder of 46-year-old Black American George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, activists, booksellers and librarians produced dozens of lists of important books addressing race and racism. According to PEN America, many of these titles have since been challenged and removed from schools in Republican-dominated states.
The recent wave of book banning demonstrates how the censorship of history, literature and truth limits education. Knowledge is a potent tool because people are prone to ignorance without it.
ILLUSTRATION BY LILA PEARCE-JARYNO
Anti-intellectualism is a well-known oppressive tactic in autocratic regimes. It controls and manipulates a population by stripping people of resources that could lead them to acknowledge and challenge corrupt governments. Most notably, it was one of the early operations carried out during the Holocaust.
The first Nazi book burning took place at the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin, Germany. This academic foundation harbored some of the first documented research on gay and transgender topics. On May 6, 1933, members of the Nazi Party raided and burned down the institute.
According to findings published by APM Research Lab in 2022, 54% of American adults, or about 130 million Americans, read below a sixth-grade reading level. Furthermore, a 2024 Pew Research Center study found that over 20% of Americans say they regularly get their news from news influencers on social media. These influencers tend to be men who identify as right-leaning.
Unfortunately, discerning truth from manipulation has become more challenging than ever before. However, on a positive note, New Jersey has joined California, Illinois, Maryland and Minnesota in enacting legislation that prevents book bans in libraries and schools based on “the origin, background or views of the library material” or its authors.
Upon signing the Freedom to Read Act on Dec. 9, 2024, Gov. Phil Murphy released a statement proclaiming that the act “cements New Jersey’s role on the forefront of preventing book bans and protecting the intellectual freedom of our educators and students.”
At a time when book banning is a significant concern and education is vital, the Freedom to Read Act is a hopeful sign of progress and an example of the achievements that can be reached when state governments acknowledge and condemn the egregious laws enacted by the far-right.
