Celebrate Banned Books Week 2024!

Banned Books Week is an annual event that the American Library Association (ALA) organizes to celebrate the freedom to read. In 2024, Banned Books Week is Sept. 22-28.

You can celebrate Banned Books Week in the law school by stopping by the library’s Banned Books Week exhibit. We have pictures of twelve of the most challenged books on the wall and we want to know which ones the most law students have read! We also have the books available to check out if you want to revisit an old favorite or try something new.

Let’s start with some vocabulary:

The American Library Association defines a book challenge as an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the actual removal of those materials.

The number of book challenges has increased over ten times since 2004 – including a 65% increase of challenges in 2023 from 2022. You can see the list of the top 10 challenged books and investigate the top 10 challenged books beginning in 2001 on the ALA’s website. Of the top ten challenged books this year, seven were challenged for LGBTQIA+ content.

There are very few book challenges in higher education. Northwestern posts its policy for book challenges on the main library’s website.

In 2023, H.B. 2789 (P.A. 103) was signed into law. This act amended the Illinois Library System Act to say that in order to be eligible for state grants, libraries must adopt the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights – specifically, that “materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.” Illinois has, in other words, banned book bans. (For more information you can check out this article in the New York Times or short audio piece on NPR.)

Illinois’ law is the first in the country, but is not unique. California already makes it illegal to ban books in schools that are about racial or gender identities, and may pass its own Freedom to Read Act this month. Maryland, Minnesota, and Vermont already passed bills this year. Many other states have proposed bills that are still in the legislative process, including Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and other states such as Kansas, New Mexico, New York, and Utah proposed books in the previous legislative session, only to have them die in committee.

If you’re interested in exploring the academic literature about book challenges and states’ efforts to curtail book challenges, here are some suggestions:

• PEN America’s report, “Banned in the USA”
• Beavers, Anna, “Balancing Interests: Harmful Bans & Harmful Books” (2023)
• Rehn, Jensen. “Battlegrounds for Banned Books: the First Amendment and Public School Libraries” (2023)
• Tylenda, Megan M. “Banned Books & Banned Identities: Maintaining Secularism and the Ability to Read in Public Education for the Well-Being of America’s Youth” (2024)