Literature Project in class 7A: Banned books in the USA

While we can enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of literature here in Austria, this isn’t the case in the US.

Over the course of the first semester 2023/2024, we, the 7A students, read one of the 50 most banned books each and presented them. On the 3rd floor you can see our exhibition on the wall in the hallway.

Even though the first amendment of the United States says that prohibition of free speech is illegal, around 2500 books were banned from school libraries in the year 2021/2022, whereas around 40% of them were linked with political pressure from state officials, mostly by right activists. They do these by changing laws or passing new policies, which enable book bans and change school curriculums. This can even happen silently, where books are removed from libraries or simply labelling them as inappropriate.

The banning was due too many different reasons. The most common ones for book bannings are LGBTQ+ or racially diverse content, but it can also range from inappropriate language to sexual content.

This movement to ban books is deeply undemocratic and it is having multifaceted, harmful impacts on students who have the right to access a diverse range of stories and perspectives, on educators and librarians and on the authors.

For example, the book I chose was “The Kite Runner” which was written and published by Khaled Hosseini in 2003. It was subject to banning in 2021 mainly because there is a rape scene. But this wasn’t the only reason. According to the school boards, the book contained sexual and terrorist content, promoted religion and strong and inappropriate language.

Even though there has been much protest against book bans, like the initiative called “Hide the Pride”, books are still banned and are still being banned to this day in the USA.

Muaz Ugur, 7A