Explained: Why are certain books being banned in some US schools?

The calls to ban certain books come in the background of increased sales of books in the US, especially those focused on diversity, race, discrimination, and civil rights, according to NPD, a markets research company.

A boost to these kinds of books followed the death of African-American George Floyd, seen as an incident of police brutality, which sparked widespread anti-racism protests across the US.

Compared to 2019, sales in this category rose by 116 per cent, led by elevated sales for titles including Oprah’s Book Club selection, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson and “Uncomfortable Conversations with A Black Man” by Emmanuel Acho.

Overall too, the sale of print books in the US was the highest in 2021 since NPD first started tracking this kind of data in 2014.

NPD says that the annual print volume of books in the US, encouraged by pandemic-induced lockdowns, reached over 825.7 million (led by adult fiction), a rise of nine percent over 2020. For context, the US population is roughly 330 million, which means the book sales in 2021 ensured at least one book for every person in the US.

Compare this to India, with a population of approximately 1.3 billion–about a billion more people than in the US – who purchased 21 million books (mostly non-fiction) in the year 2018.

So what explains the demand to ban books?

There is growing concern among parents across some states in the US that their children are getting ‘indoctrinated’ in classrooms and college campuses by being exposed to gender, sexual and racial identity curriculums and courses.

This is what two bills filed by Oklahoma Senate member Rob Strandridge in December 2021 wish to address. One of these bills give a parent or a guardian the right to submit a request to remove any book, which they think violates the law because it deals with “address the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, gender identity”.

In September 2021, a so-called ‘critical race theory’ law was passed during the Texas Legislature’s second session. Critical race theory is an idea, which says that racism is systemic, something which the law wants to “abolish” by permitting teachers to not discuss “a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.”

NBC news recently reported that books dealing with race and sexuality are disappearing from Texas schools in record numbers.

A school district in the state of Tennessee banned the graphic novel ‘Maus’ from an eighth-grade curriculum because of profanity and nudity. But the ban seems to have had a counter-intuitive effect.

The novel’s sales soared following its ban, giving it a spot on Amazon’s bestseller list.

Interpreting the book ban

This concern seen in parents is running contrary to what free-speech activists think is censorship and an attempt to suppress the voices of the marginalised people, especially since libraries are seen as an extension of the First Amendment, the provision in the US Constitution that protects free-speech and freedom of the press.

The American Library Association, whose Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) maintains a database of banned and challenged books, notes that 156 book titles that were banned, challenged or restricted in 2020. The list is compiled using reports received from libraries, schools and the media about attempts to ban certain books communities.

The 2020 list includes titles such as Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’, Donald Trump’s ‘Crippled America’, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ among others.

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Deborah Caldwell-Stone, OIF Director said in November 2021 that the office recorded an ‘unprecedented’ volume of challenges to books in the fall of 2021. From June 2021-November 2021, 155 incidents had already been recorded, implying that the total number of challenges received in 2021 could surpass that seen in previous years.

But on the other hand there are groups such as the No Left Turn in Education that want to “expose the radical indoctrination” of students in school. This group compiles a list of books that “spread radical and racist ideologies to students”. These include books dealing with critical race theory, anti-police books and those that give “comprehensive sexuality education”.

One of the books on their list is the aforementioned “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson whose sales shot up after Floyd’s death.