While the right intentions are in mind to protect America’s youth from inappropriate topics, the way the situation is being handled, through book restrictions, is not the solution.
The primary issue with banning books is the clash with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
With the government getting more involved in what books schools teach and what books libraries carry, more people’s rights are being infringed upon.
For Mary Ellen Flannery of neaToday, PEN America has recorded “22,801 cases of book bans” over the past four years.
“Likely the number of books taken out of students’ hands is even bigger,” Flannery said.
The book with the most bans is over 60 years old. “A Clockwork Orange,” by Anthony Burgess, tells the story of a violent dystopian future with an extremist government.
Columbia University Teachers College Professor of Education Leadership Sonya Douglass feels the restrictions on books are threatening children’s “quality of education.”
“[Book bans] diminish the quality of education students have access to and restrict their exposure to important perspectives that form the fabric of a culturally pluralist society like the United States,” Douglass said.
Having accessible information for all people is crucial for everyone to stay informed and represented. Banning books makes these things inaccessible.
PEN America believes that “two things help us make sense of the world – information and stories.”
“Both explain, describe, and give language to the world we encounter,” PEN America said. “It is not a surprise then that banning books is a way of erasing stories, identities, experiences, and peoples and reshaping understandings of the past.”
Censoring the facts of the past through book restrictions eliminates important parts of history.