The American Library Association recorded more book challenges in 2021 than any other year this century, mostly of books by or about Black or LGBTQ people, amid a nationwide conservative push to restrict books and lessons about race, gender and sexuality.
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The organization's Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials last year, with 1,597 individual books challenged or banned. In 2020, the group tracked just 156 such challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and 377 in 2019.
ALA President Patricia Wong said the challenges the organization tracked in 2021 were the most since 2000.
"We support individual parents' choices concerning their child's reading and believe that parents should not have those choices dictated by others," Wong said in a release. "Young people need to have access to a variety of books from which they can learn about different perspectives."
Of the 10 books the organization said were the most challenged last year, half were because they included LGBTQ content. Five of the authors were people of color, and two other authors were transgender or non-binary.
The ALA’s "State of America’s Libraries" report published on Monday said "conservative parent groups and right-wing media" orchestrated attacks trying to remove books about race, gender and LGBTQ issues from public and school libraries. Challenges to public and school libraries comprised 81% of challenges last year, with parents (39%), school boards (18%), and political and religious groups (10%) initiating the vast majority of challenges.
Students, teachers and librarians initiated just 7% of 2021’s record-setting challenges, according to the ALA.
This push has coincided with another by lawmakers in all but 10 states to limit lessons about similar topics in schools. According to literary and free expression organization PEN America, 175 bills have been introduced since last January that restrict instruction on race, gender and sexual orientation in schools, public universities and government programs.
Fifteen such bills have become laws in 13 states, all of which have Republican-controlled legislatures and governorships. PEN America's analysis said a common feature of the introduced and enacted legislation is limiting discussions and lessons about the role of race in American history.
Twenty-three bills specifically restrict use of The New York Times' "1619 Project," with more than a dozen other bills banning instruction that racism and slavery fundamentally shaped American life and its institutions.
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