Shocking Number of Books Banned in 2022

More than 1,600 books were banned in over 5,000 schools during the last school year, with most of the bans targeting titles related to the LGBTQ community or race and racism, according to a new report. 

PEN America, a nonprofit group that advocates for free expression in literature, released a report Monday, the start of Banned Books Week, that shows the sweeping scope of efforts to ban certain books during the 2021-22 school year. 

It found that there were 2,532 instances of individual books’ being banned, which affected 1,648 titles — meaning the same titles were targeted multiple times in different districts and states.

Books were banned in 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students in 32 states, the report found.

Because PEN America stuck to documented cases of bans, which included reports to the group from parents and school staff members and news reports about book bans, the report says its data most likely undercounts the true number of bans. 

Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America, said the recent efforts to ban books are a new phenomenon that has been led primarily by a small number of conservative advocacy groups that believe parents don’t have enough control over what their children are learning.

“We all can agree that parents deserve to and are entitled to a say over their kids’ education,” Nossel said at a news conference PEN America hosted Monday. “That’s absolutely essential. But fundamentally, that is not what this is about when parents are mobilized in an orchestrated campaign to intimidate teachers and librarians to dictate that certain books be pulled off shelves even before they’ve been read or reviewed. That goes beyond the reasonable, legitimate entitlement of a parent to have a give-and-take with the school — things that are enshrined in parent-teacher conferences and PTAs.”

Preliminary data released Friday by the American Library Association, or ALA, found that the number of attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities and public libraries is on track to exceed the record counts of 2021. 

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, the ALA documented 681 attempts to ban or restrict library resources, with 1,651 library titles being targeted, compared to 729 attempts for all of last year, with 1,597 books targeted. 

The PEN America report said nearly all of the book bans — 96% — were enacted without schools or districts following the best practice guidelines for book challenges outlined by the ALA and the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Before the wave of book bans, parents would sometimes raise concerns to their children’s schools or teachers about books their children brought home, said Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s director of free expression and education programs.

But now, conservative groups and parents are Googling to find books that have any LGBTQ content, and then a conservative group adds it to a list of inappropriate books, Friedman said.

“They complain about the books online, the books go on a list, the list takes on a sense of legitimacy, and then it being on the list leads a school district to react to that list and take it seriously,” Friedman said, adding that in nearly all of the cases, the cycle happens without respect for process or policy.

Friedman pointed to a case in Walton County, Florida, where a popular children’s book called “Everywhere Babies” landed on a banned books list last spring. A few of the illustrations include what could be interpreted as same-sex couples, but they are never identified as such in the text. The Florida Citizens Alliance, a conservative nonprofit group focused on education, included it in its 2021 “Porn in Schools Report.”