The national fury of recent years ban books Issues of race and gender in public schools are intensifying as President-elect Donald Trump threatens to shut down the Department of Education, encouraging conservatives to end “wokeness” in classrooms.

Battles for books school libraries have become emblematic of the country’s broader culture wars over race, historical revisionism, and gender identity. A new report from PEN America found that book bans increased by nearly 200% in the 2023-24 school year, including titles about sexuality, substance abuse, depression and other issues that students face a a time of accelerating technology, climate change, toxic policies and fears about the future.

Book censorship has shaken and divided school boards, pitted parents against each other and led to threats against teachers and librarians. It’s part of an agenda by conservative parental rights groups and politicians who promote charter schools and voucher systems that could weaken public education. The question goes to the heart of not only what students learn, but also how federal and state education policies will affect the nation’s politics after one of the most consequential elections in its history.

These three books have been banned in some Florida counties.

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

“It’s not just about taking a book off a shelf,” said Tasslyn Magnusson, a Wisconsin author and teacher who tracks book censorship in the United States. “It’s about power and who controls public education. This is about the kind of America we were and are. We’re trying to define what family is and what America means. It depends on the stories we tell.

She said she fears Trump’s return to the White House will further incite those calling for book bans: “I don’t have much hope.” It could be much worse.

Over the past year, PEN has counted more than 10,000 book bans nationwide, targeting 4,231 unique titles. Most were books dealing with gender, sexuality, race, and LGBTQ+ storylines. The most banned title was “Nineteen minutes” by Jodi Picoult about a school shooting that included a brief description of date rape. Florida and Iowa — both of which have strict regulations on what students can read — recorded more than 8,200 bans in the 2023-2024 school year.

“This crisis is tragic for young people hungry to understand the world they live in and to see their identities and experiences reflected in books,” Kasey Meehan, director of PEN’s Freedom to Read program, said in a statement. “What students can read in schools forms the foundation of their lives. »

Trump’s calls to close the Ministry of Education would need congressional approval, which seems unlikely. Although public schools are largely funded and governed by state and local institutions, the department helps fund the education of students with disabilities, provides approximately $18 billion in grants to primary and secondary schools in poor communities, and oversees a civil rights branch to protect students from discrimination.

But Trump’s election has inspired conservative parenting groups, including Moms For Liberty and Parents Defending Education, to step up efforts to curb what they see as a liberal conspiracy to indoctrinate children with books and teachings. perverse, amoral and pornographic.

Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, criticized schools that she says spend too much time on diversity and inclusion when only about a third of American children are reading on grade level: “We’re talking of public school libraries and content for children,” Justice told NewsNation after Trump’s victory. “I think it’s very clear that there are some things that are suitable for children, others that are suitable for adults. We’re just getting back to common sense America.

Trump’s threat refuse federal funding to schools that recognize transgender identities could affect the curricula and types of books that school libraries stock. At his rally at Madison Square Garden in October, Trump — who has accused schools of promoting sex reassignment surgeries — said his administration would eliminate “transgender madness from our schools.” Vice President-elect JD Vance accused Democrats of wanting to “put sexually explicit books in little ones’ libraries.”

Forsyth County School Board members before a June meeting.

(Forsyth County Schools/AP)

Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told Newsmax she was excited by Trump’s calls to remake education and “clean up a lot of the mess” he inherited from the Biden administration. Trump “refocused parental rights on his agenda, which is incredible. He prioritized knowledge and skills, not identity politics,” she said. “American children deserve better and it’s time for change. »

By naming Linda McMahon As education secretary, Trump appears to be pushing for more conservative parental controls over what is taught and read in classrooms. A former professional wrestling executive, McMahon chairs the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked organization that has criticized schools for teaching “racially divisive” theories, including slavery and a perspective on the founding of nation that it considers anti-American.

“Today’s controversial debates over the use of classrooms for political activism rather than for teaching a complete and accurate account of American history have reinvigorated calls for greater student involvement. parents and citizens in the program approval process,” the institute’s website states.

Culturally divisive issues, including racial and LGBTQ+ themes, cost school districts an estimated $3.2 billion in the 2023-2024 school year, according to a recent study titled “The costs of conflict”. The survey – released by the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA – found that battles over books and teaching about sexuality and other topics have led to an increase expenses related to legal fees, replacing administrators and teachers who resign, and security, including outside of work hours. plainclothes police officers.

“Are we really going to spend our tax dollars on this stuff? » asked Magnusson. “After Trump was elected, I saw a group of middle-class white women like me saying, ‘This isn’t America.’ But maybe it’s America.

A school superintendent in a Western state told study researchers that his staff was often busy correcting misinformation and responding to public records requests, mostly from radical parental rights activists trying to ‘exploiting culture war issues to discredit the district. “Our staff spends an awful lot of time doing stupid things,” the superintendent said. “The fiscal costs to the district are enormous, as are the cultural costs of not standing up to extremists. If someone doesn’t do this, students and employees will lose out. … This is the worst it’s ever been.

The survey found that 29 percent of 467 principals surveyed said teachers and other staff had left their profession or left their district “because of cultural conflicts.”

Censorship of books in school libraries grew out of opposition to COVID-19 restrictions. A number of conservative parent groups, including Moms for Liberty, which invited Trump to speak at its national convention in August, have turned their attention to lobbying against “liberal indoctrination.” Their protests against what they characterized as progressive teaching on sexuality and race were intended to increase conservative parental control over a public education system that was I struggle with teaching children reading and math.

Karen Frost of Moms for Liberty speaks at a rally in Simi Valley last year.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

That strategy has led to a national right-wing effort that “redefines the power of government to restrict access to information in our schools,” said Stephana Ferrell, co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project. “This movement to protect our children’s innocence believes that if children never read about it in a book, they won’t have to know about it and can continue to live harmonious lives. But the books teach us warnings. They teach us. You cannot protect innocence with ignorance.

School districts across the country have removed Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer” and George Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which deal with gender identity and include graphic depictions of sex, as well as titles. Renowned writers such as Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Maya Angelou and Flannery O’Connor.

Surveys show that most Americans do not support censorship. The Florida Freedom to Read Project and similar organizations across the country have called for extensive public review of challenged books to prevent a scene or passage from being taken out of context. Over the past two years, moderate and liberal parent groups have also become more active in school board politics. They supported school board candidates who defeated those supported by Moms for Liberty in Texas, Florida and other states.

School districts across the country have removed Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer” from school libraries.

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

“People say the pendulum is going to swing back,” Ferrell said. But, she added, conservatives want to “prevent the pendulum from swinging back.”

Picoult is used to attempts at censorship by conservatives. His books have been banned from schools in more than 30 states. Published in 2007, “Nineteen Minutes” explores the lives of characters, including a girl who was raped, in a town leading up to a school shooting and its aftermath.

“Owning the most banned book in the country is not an honor. This is a wake-up call,” said Picoult, whose books have sold more than 40 million copies. “My book, along with the 10,000 other books released from school libraries this year, gives children a tool to cope with an increasingly divided and difficult world. These book banners don’t help children. They hurt them.