“In 2025, book censorship in the United States is rampant and common. Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws of regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from children.”

– from The Normalization of Book Banning, PEN America

The above excerpt is from PEN America’s investigative report on the book bans and censorship in the public schools during the 2024-2025 school year. PEN found that more than 6,800 book titles were temporarily or permanently removed from school shelves.

This statistic may sound like a noticeable improvement from the previous year’s report, when PEN found over 10,000 titles temporarily or permanently removed. Remember that it was only four years ago when PEN started to track and index the school libraries’ titles being banned. Four years ago PEN did not see the need to investigate book bans in public schools because the numbers were too low.

What a difference four years makes. Since mid-2021, over 23,000 book titles have been banned. It is a result of political pressure and anticipation of parental backlash, combined with an inconsistent enforcement policy, that has now designated censorship as a new and normal part of education policy.

It has long been recognized that a key characteristic of fascist societies, in order to suppress dissent to maintain their stranglehold on power, accelerate their use of intimidation and violence to achieve their ends. Book banning and censorship is commonplace and is perceived as a necessary step to maintain control of the narrative as its suits their needs. The country’s past, present and future is not debatable: there are no books on the library’s school shelves to challenge their narrative.

The historical books conform to the autocratic leader’s vision of what he wants to be regarded as history. Most importantly, any books that portray those on the society’s margins are not allowed.

There is another significant change in the 2024-2025 PEN report. It used to be that public schools were facing local and state pressures to ban certain titles.

In the current administration, with President Trump’s unhinged obsession with the elimination of all real (or imaginary) traces of diversity, equity and inclusion, Executive Orders smoothly move out of Trump’s office to achieve his goal at a rapid, unrelenting pace.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Education ended an initiative under the auspices of the Office of Civil Rights that would investigate allegations of discriminatory practices in book bans in public schools.

It should come as no surprise, given that the Trump administration deems book banning and censorship a “hoax,” their logic follows that, therefore, how could bad practices prevail when all of it is a hoax.

However, the Department of Education deemed it necessary, in their ambitious efforts to limit the development of the nations’ children to have a well-informed and a questioning mindset, DOE deemed it necessary to follow up with a “Dear Colleague” letter to its staff stating, in no unequivocal terms, to “cease using race preferences and stereotypes “ or risk federal funding.

Federal judges have prohibited the enforcement of the letter, but some states are utilizing the concepts of anti-woke to the extreme.

The statistics in the PEN report include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s purge of the school libraries that serve the military’s K-12 families. Hegseth took great joy in ripping six hundred books off the shelves: he was after the “un-American books,” the ones that have the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion.

What was most disturbing in the PEN report was the revelation that school administrators, teachers and librarians, in anticipation of parental backlash, have removed books that have not previously been threatened. Knowing what may happen, the unbelievably rancid fights at school board meetings, underscored with threats of violence, books may never reach the shelves out of the hope of avoiding the angry parents with a highlighter

It may come as no surprise that 80% of book bans have originated from the three states of Florida, Texas and Tennessee. Meanwhile, in other states such as Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey, laws have been enacted that limit the authority of schools and public libraries to pull books off the shelves.

It may come as no surprise that the books being banned are the stories of people on the margins of society: stories of children in poverty, children living with abusive parents, any and all references to sexuality and LGBTQ are banned under the guise of “protecting the children.”

Book banning carries a sinister reality: the practice of book bans is to eliminate entire communities, their identities and their history.

“Your life, as it exists today, is a life that matters enough to be written about,” Award-winning young adult and children’s author Jason Reynolds, stated. “My job is to bear witness to the reality of their lives.”

It came as no surprise to master storyteller Stephen King that the PEN report found him to be the most-banned-book writer for the past school year. Stephen King had 206 books censored during the 2024 -2025 school year. King’s use of gore and violence (used in the context of delivering a higher, more empathetic measure) is cited as the reason for his censorship.

Stephen King has been banned every year for the nearly 50 years of his writing career. King has written over 60 books; he is unbelievably revered among millions of people. King has never felt the need to defend his work. He considers that his job, as the writer, is complete.

King uses his social media platform to inform his readers on the necessity of maintaining a democracy with the free exchange of ideas–which can only be achieved with the elimination of book bans. King has offered to students everywhere that if they cannot find the banned book that need to read, he will provide it for them. And he has.

With his usual aplomb, King responded via Twitter when he was informed of his new status revealed from the PEN report with his usual grace and aplomb: “I am now the most banned author in the United States -87 books. May I suggest that you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing and moaning is about? Self-righteous book banners don’t always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit.”

Book banning and censorship is no longer a threat – our realities now consist of censorship.

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