Not a novel idea: The lasting narrative of book bans—Part III in a series
In this multi-part Statehouse File special report, Sydney Byerly examines the history of, the motivation behind and varying reactions to Indiana’s recent embrace of book banning.
3. Next chapter:
The new genre of book censorship
Dr. Jason Aukerman, the director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies and clinical assistant professor in English at Indiana University Indianapolis, said book bans are different now, not necessarily in the subject matter but in the rate and level at which they’re being banned.
He’s right. According to the ALA’s latest press release, the number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by the association. And titles representing LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.
Over the last two years, the trending challenges have increasingly been directed against multiple titles at a time, oftentimes because of conservative groups like Moms for Liberty organizing banning efforts nationwide.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told the Associated Press, “There used to be a roughly one-to-one ratio, where a parent would complain about an individual book, like in the days when many were objecting to Harry Potter,” Caldwell-Stone said. “Now you have people turning up at meetings and asking that 100 titles be removed.
“I think this trend is going to continue, at least for as long as these groups want to go after whole categories of books.”
Aukerman suggested that while censorship and book banning has historically been cyclical, the recent trend sweeping the nation could be due to a rise in Christian nationalism and that rhetoric during former president Donald Trump’s administration invigorated people in a way the country had never seen before.
“There is a segment of the population that holds their beliefs very dearly. Their faith brings a lot of meaning into their life. And I think certain religious groups have enjoyed a considerable privilege for many, many years, and there are trends that are alarming,” said Aukerman. “Younger people are turning out to be less religious, fewer and fewer are going to church. In 2015, the Supreme Court made it legal for same-sex couples to marry each other.”+4
Throughout history, a long (and growing) list of books has been moved or removed from the shelves of libraries for one reason or another. Look…
Aukerman said it seems these people feel empowered now to vocalize their beliefs through legislation that has led to mass book banning.
“I think that’s reflected in the types of books that we are seeing challenged and banned right now,” he said. “Anything dealing with LGBTQ+ issues. There is an attempt to whitewash history.”
Aukerman said he was quick to pick up on these cues having grown up in it.
“I know what the mentality is like because I had an inside perspective,” he said. “I held those beliefs at one time in my life.
“There’s this lack of understanding that just because you hold the conviction, the belief does not mean you are allowed to impose that belief on other people. And when people lose privilege—the loss of unmerited and even unconstitutional privilege—for some people, if they’re not able to take a step back, it feels like persecution having to give other people the exact same rights you’ve enjoyed for so long.”
“I think we’ve got a minority population in the country that thinks that it should be the majority population, and they’re having a hard time dealing with the fact that they are becoming an ever increasingly smaller minority in the country.
“I feel like on some level they understand this culture war they’ve waged is something they’ve lost, especially with people in younger generations. They’re coming up more tolerant, they’re more accepting, they’re more accommodating. They’re willing to stand up for the rights of people who have been bullied and marginalized for a long time.”
Aukerman suggested that rather than being introspective and considering why this is the case, people who hold these beliefs are quick to find something to blame—concluding they’re being indoctrinated.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “But they’re looking for answers and explanations, and once they think they’ve found something, they attack it. And that’s what we’re seeing with the book bans and the censorship of history.”
Aukerman said that, from his perspective, “We’re living in a cultural moment that’s really really interesting. I’ll throw the cliche out there: Tell me a single point in history where the people who censored and banned books were the good guys.
“By and large, history does not look kindly on the people who banned books and censor information. The people who make those attempts might prevail for a while, but usually democracy wins out. Choice wins out. Individual freedom wins out.”
Aukerman reflected on how it can be hard to separate that there are people you may love and care about who hold these beliefs and breaking them from this ideology can be difficult. However, he said, “The idea of book banning doesn’t scare me. But what it’s communicating to our young people absolutely terrifies me and infuriates me, and that’s why I’m so active and engaged in opposing this.”
Aukerman argued that every kid should be able to grab a book in their school or public library and see themselves represented or reflected because “we read to learn, we read to escape, we read to imagine other possibilities.
“Kids have cell phones. If they want to get the information, they’ve got Google right at their fingertips. So, it’s not like any of this legislation is going to make any difference in preventing certain types of knowledge from getting into students’ hands.
“What it is communicating especially to our LGBTQ+ youth is, ‘You’re not welcome here, we don’t like you.’ And it further marginalizes them when they’re already facing challenges most of us don’t have to face. Taking their books away from them—that’s just a bully move,” Aukerman continued. “It’s absolutely disgusting. There is nothing loving in that, there is nothing kind in that. I find that it’s a form of bullying, it’s a form of aggression and it cannot be tolerated.”
Erin Gabrielson, student learning and research librarian at Franklin College, had her own suggestions for why book bans have resurfaced in recent years—one of them being “the filter bubble.”
“The algorithms that we’re all subjected to, how any social media we consume, even internet searches, Google, are creating a bubble for us where we maybe aren’t seeing the same variety of thought, we aren’t getting the same exposure of ideas that are different than our own anymore,” she said. “And so there’s this expectation of comfort because that’s the information world we’ve been all getting accustomed to.”
Gabrielson said this can be problematic because parents can have the misconception that letting their child wander in the library can be as safe as letting them on an app with parental controls.
She worries that with the filter bubble, people might be losing their ability to have civil discourse.
“When you’re only seeing things that you agree with, you’re not being challenged, you don’t really know what to do then, so it’s a very defensive reaction from parents who are engaging in this with challenges and wanting books moved or removed completely,” Gabrielson said. “So, I think there’s a lot of moving parts politically, it’s a political issue. It’s also an issue of plurality and people not really knowing how to exist anymore.”
Aukerman agrees. “It’s really unfortunate, and I think that’s a broader cultural trend, and expertise is just not valued anymore,” he said.
“People are constantly getting educated at YouTube University. They’re Google scholars, but not in a good sense. They look for information that affirms their biases, that affirms what they want to think. The lack of information literacy is another large contributing factor.”
Aukerman said that not only are filter bubbles impacting how certain populations feel about the material they’re trying to challenge, but the elected officials creating these types of legislation are incapable of finding peer-reviewed research or letting research guide their beliefs.
“It’s the inverse,” he said. “They allow their belief to guide what they research instead of looking for the truth. It’s just this constant circle of confirmation bias that is really troubling and could be detrimental to our democracy if it continues.”
