Despite freedom of speech being enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution, the United States are no stranger when it comes to severely limiting access to or outright banning books from schools, libraries and universities. These censorship attempts mostly fly under the radar, but a recent slew of proposed book bans ranging from educational works about the Holocaust to books allegedly fostering "sexual perversion" brought this issue to the forefront of discussions about free artistic expression once again. Even though the most fervent pushes towards censorship mostly come from school boards or political groups, they make up only a minority of recorded censorship attempts.
According to data compiled by the American Library Association (ALA), 50 percent of the 147 censorship attempts cataloged in 2020 came from parents and 20 percent from patrons of public libraries. Political and religious groups made up 9 percent of proposed bans, while demands by government or educational institution officials constituted 11 percent of the total number of book censorship attempts. Some of the core reasons given for a proposed ban were the highlighting of LGBTQIA+ content, certain religious or political viewpoints as well as anti-police sentiment and profanity. Analyzing the annual top 10 lists given out by the ALA up until 2018, S.F. Whitaker from Book Riot concludes that the biggest issue for censorship advocates is the propagation of queer topics and outright sexual references.
This also reflects in the top 10 of the most challenged books in 2020: "George", a story about a young trans girl aimed at 3rd to 7th graders by author Alex Gino, claimed the top spot. "George" is followed by "Stamped" by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds and "All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, both of which deal with racism and the experience of Black people in the U.S. This, of course, only reflects the reported censorship attempts. The ALA estimates upward of 82 percent of book ban proposals to go unreported per year.
