Can Books be Banned? The Legality of Censorship in United States Libraries

By: Faith Magiera

Edited by: Jonah Elkowitz and Isabel Gortner

When a child picks out a book in a school library, to what extent should the material they are choosing from be controlled or censored? Book bans have swept the nation as the political landscape has become more ideologically charged in recent years, with children’s education at the forefront of many debates about what materials should be present in educational landscapes. States led by conservative politicians, such as Texas, have led the nation in banning books that often pertain to LGBTQ+ or race-related topics, as Texas attempted to censor over 2,500 titles in 2022. [1] With the increase of book bans, schools have become a battleground for ideologies to rehash which reading material children have access to. With this partisan battle taking place in school districts across the country, cases addressing the legality of book bans in states such as Florida and Texas have come to the forefront of national consciousness. Grappling with the idea of book bans and their constitutionality is necessary to understanding violations of the First Amendment’s freedom of expression clause, which is something that the United States has and continues to struggle with as media coverage of this issue increases.

Book bans in states such as Texas have deemed titles such as The Bluest Eye by Toni Morison as “sexually explicit” and thus, able to be censored in children’s libraries.[2] As the American Library Association explains, the Supreme Court has historically defended the right of private individuals to consume media that could be perceived as controversial, even in the face of governmental censorship. [3] However, there are categories of speech that can and have been censored by the government, including obscenity. In Roth v. United States, the Warren Court ruled that books could be censored if they were “utterly without redeeming social importance” [4], a standard that is not only subjective but also vague. As many recent bans categorize the books in question as obscene or sexually explicit, it is important to understand the Supreme Court precedent that allows the government to infringe upon speech while still operating in the purview of the First Amendment. Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, a similar book-banning case in the 1980s that was brought before the Supreme Court, dealt with issues that we see in today’s book bans. [5] The school board of a Massachusetts town wanted to take books out of circulation from school libraries that were deemed to be obscene and contrary to values they wanted to enforce in the educational environment. [6] Consequently, a group of students decided to sue in defense of the books with the Supreme Court eventually ruling in their favor. [7] The decision stated that “the First Amendment imposes limitations upon a local school board's exercise of its discretion to remove books from…school libraries,”  which has precedent in the protection of students’ First Amendment rights by Tinker v. Des Moines School District. [8] The difference between a school library and a school classroom is something essential to consider here, as a teacher’s ability to develop a curriculum does not extend to the space of “voluntary inquiry” that a school library is supposed to be. [9] The idea of freedom of thought, something inherent to libraries, is foregrounded in the decision of Board of Education v. Pico and is something that states should keep in mind when contemplating book bans today.

In combating the increase of book bans occurring since 2020, states such as Illinois have taken an active stand in protecting the right of libraries to circulate books freely. [10] Following in the footsteps of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, the 2023 law signed into effect by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker prevents any book bans from occurring in the state's public schools or libraries. [11] Directly entering the partisan ideological battle, Governor Pritzker commented on other governor’s “hypocritical” censorship of books that do not fit their political ideology, potentially in reference to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. [12] This is one way that we see book bans being confronted through the legislative system, but there are other judicial cases that are confronting the legality of book bans. 

Coming back to Texas, while book bans have become more prevalent in the state within the past few years, there has also been a 2024 federal appeals court decision that blocked a law aimed at censorship of books in educational settings. [13] The decision stated that the 2023 Texas law, The Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources Act, or READER Act, was unconstitutional because of its rating system that would require book vendors to rate the sexual explicitness of all books to sell them to Texas schools. [14] As the rating system requires private individuals and corporations to “either speak as the State demands or suffer the consequences,” it infringes upon the constitutional rights of those individuals not to speak or share their opinions about the books, an innately subjective task. [15] This decision in the case Book People, Incorporated v. Wong sets a precedent for other book banning systems to be unconstitutional in the future.

In an increasingly polarized political landscape, it is hard not to see the importance of these ideological battles that are occurring at the very foundation of the educational system. While book bans are no new phenomenon, as seen by Board of Education v. Pico, [16] the extent to which they have been both covered in the media and have entered the mainstream national consciousness in recent years is something to be noted and investigated, While cases and laws have recently favored the idea of freedom of expression as opposed to censorship, [17] the United States’ political landscape is tumultuous, and thus, one can never know where future Supreme Court decisions and state laws will take the legality of book bans. As book bans stand at the intersection of the question of the power of organizations such as school boards to disseminate their ideas and the freedom of speech and expression of individuals, it is an issue that cannot be neatly decided. However, for right now, it is essential to not only be informed of the ways censorship is impacting American libraries but also to understand the somewhat shaky legal grounds of the precedent decisions relating to obscenity and censorship that lie at the very root of the book bans.

Notes:

1. Salam, Erum. 2023. “Texas Was State with Most Book Bans in 2022, Report Shows.” The Guardian, September 14, 2023, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/texas-most-book-bans-2022

2. Salam, “Texas Was the State with Most Book Bans.”

3. American Library Association. 2008. “First Amendment and Censorship.” American Library Association. June 13, 2008. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/censorship.

4. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

5. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

6. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

7. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

8. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

9. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

10. Mayorquin, Orlando. 2023. “To Fight Book Bans, Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans.” The New York Times, June 13, 2023, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/illinois-book-bans-schools-public-libraries.html. 

11. Mayorquin, “Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans.”

12. Mayorquin, “Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans.”

13. Helsel, Phil. 2024. “U.S. Appeals Court Blocks Texas Law That Could Ban or Restrict Library Books.” NBC News. January 18, 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-appeals-court-blocks-texas-law-ban-restrict-library-books-rcna134426.

14. Book People, Inc. v. Wong, No. 23-50668 (5th Cir. 2024).

15. Book People, Inc. v. Wong, No. 23-50668 (5th Cir. 2024), 28.

16. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

17. Helsel, “U.S. Appeals Court Blocks Texas Law.”

Bibliography:

American Library Association. 2008. “First Amendment and Censorship.” American Library Association. June 13, 2008. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/censorship.

Book People, Inc. v. Wong, No. 23-50668 (5th Cir. 2024), 28.

Helsel, Phil. 2024. “U.S. Appeals Court Blocks Texas Law That Could Ban or Restrict Library Books.” NBC News. January 18, 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-appeals-court-blocks-texas-law-ban-restrict-library-books-rcna134426.

Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

Mayorquin, Orlando. 2023. “To Fight Book Bans, Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans.” The New York Times, June 13, 2023, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/illinois-book-bans-schools-public-libraries.html. 

Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

‌Salam, Erum. 2023. “Texas Was State with Most Book Bans in 2022, Report Shows.” The Guardian, September 14, 2023, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/texas-most-book-bans-2022.