After years of work by the state legislature and literary advocates, Massachusetts became the 13th state to pass a freedom to read law. Read more
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Category: Banned Books
School Board in Florida Bans Book about Book Bans
The Indian River County School Board voted to remove “Ban This Book” by Alan Gratz from its shelves in a meeting last month, overruling its own district book-review committee’s decision to keep it. Read more
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In Major Win, Appeals Court Upholds Block on Texas Book Rating Law
In a major victory for freedom to read advocates, the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals on January 17 upheld a lower court decision to block key provisions of HB 900, Texas’s controversial book rating law, finding that the law likely violated First Amendment protections against compelled speech … Viewed by many as the most high profile of a wave of book banning laws at the state level, the law was signed by Texas governor Greg Abbott on June 12. The controversial law requires book vendors to review and rate books sold to Texas schools—both new books and books previously sold—for sexual content. Read more
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The Forgotten Poet at the Center of San Francisco’s Longest Obscenity Trial
Amid Reagan’s late-sixties crackdown on the California counterculture, a jury was tasked with deciding whether Lenore Kandel’s psychedelic sex poems had “redeeming social importance.” Read more
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Parent Says the Bible Contains Porn and Should be Removed from School Libraries
The parent writes that the book should be considered indecent under Utah’s new book banning law, after seeing the other titles that have been pulled. Read more
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The 50 Most Banned Books in America
During the 2021-2022 school year, more than 1,600 books were banned from school libraries. The bans affected 138 school districts in 32 states, according to a report from PEN America, an organization dedicated to protecting free expression in literature. And the number of bans are only increasing yearly. Read more
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How to Battle Book Banning in Your Community
Christopher M. Finan has been involved in the fight against censorship for 35 years. He is executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the former president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Read more
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Judge Tosses Virginia Obscenity Cases, Declares State Law Unconstitutional
In a resounding victory for the freedom to read, a Virginia state judge on August 30 swiftly dismissed two closely-watched cases that sought to bar the public display and sale of two books alleged to be obscene under an obscure state law. Furthermore, in dismissing the cases the court struck down the Virginia law upon which the cases were brought, finding it unconstitutional. Read more
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Why Inappropriate Books Are the Best Kind
According to “Banned in the USA,” a report issued by the writers’ organization PEN America in April, nearly 1,600 individual books were banned in 26 states between July 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022. Read more
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Republicans are banning books about historical truths their own leaders have apologized for
Over a recent 9 month period more than 1,500 books have been banned in schools, most featuring nonwhite protagonists, dealing with racism, or addressing the LGBTQ experience. Read more
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