Challenges to books in Kentucky libraries tripled in 2022 amid national jump in attempted bans

by Derek Operle, Kentucky Lantern
May 1, 2023

Like libraries nation­wide, Kentucky libraries expe­ri­enced a surge in chal­lenges to mate­ri­als in 2022.

Data released by the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom last week indi­cat­ed the num­ber of chal­lenges near­ly dou­bled in the U.S. since 2021, but in Kentucky they tripled. The num­ber of attempts to restrict mate­ri­als went from just sev­en to 22 and the num­ber of titles chal­lenged rose from 23 to 70.

Andrew Adler is pres­i­dent of the Kentucky Library Association, the state’s ALA chap­ter. He said most of the chal­lenged titles have to do with LGBTQIA+ lifestyles or sex­u­al­i­ty and that these chal­lenges are moti­vat­ed by “a cul­ture of fear and misunderstanding.”

“As a librar­i­an and some­one who val­ues anti-cen­sor­ship and intel­lec­tu­al free­dom, I am very appalled and con­cerned by what we’re see­ing nation­al­ly. [People are] chal­leng­ing these mate­ri­als and the way in which they are being cat­e­go­rized and described … has been as ‘porno­graph­ic’ and ‘sub­ver­sive,’ when­ev­er they are def­i­nite­ly not,” Adler said. “The idea of try­ing to silence and lim­it voic­es that, for so long, have always had been oppressed his­tor­i­cal­ly, to try to con­tin­ue to do that, and see those chal­lenges con­tin­ue is some­thing that is con­cern­ing to me, and very disheartening.

“The way they’ve been cat­e­go­rized and attacked is some­thing that I believe that all peo­ple should be con­cerned about, not just librar­i­ans, but the larg­er pub­lic as well.”

President Joe Biden also acknowl­edged the ris­ing trend in attempt­ed book bans ear­li­er this week when he announced he was run­ning for office again.

PEN America – a non­prof­it track­ing nation­al book ban data – found more than 40% of the books chal­lenged in the U.S. in 2022 had to do with LGBTQIA+ lifestyles or sex­u­al­i­ty and 21% dealt with issues of race or racism.

There were near­ly 1,300 demands to cen­sor library books and resources in 2022 — near­ly dou­ble the 2021 total. That’s the high­est total of attempt­ed book bans since ALA start­ed com­pil­ing data more than 20 years ago.

Nearly 51% of the attempts to chal­lenge or cen­sor books took place in school libraries and schools and 48% of book chal­lenges tar­get­ed mate­ri­als in pub­lic libraries.

The most chal­lenged book nation­wide, and in Kentucky, in 2022 was Maia Kobabe’s graph­ic mem­oir “Gender Queer.”

Jen Gilbert is a school librar­i­an in Henry County and the pres­i­dent of the Kentucky Association of School Librarians. Gilbert said some chal­lenges have attempt­ed to restrict as many as 25 books at a time.

“There’s def­i­nite­ly way more than have hap­pened in pre­vi­ous years,” she said. “Probably what’s most unusu­al is just the ones that are hap­pen­ing in mass.”

That’s in line with what American Library Association pres­i­dent Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada said is hap­pen­ing across the U.S. She said in the past titles, were chal­lenged when a par­ent or oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber saw a book in the library they didn’t like. But now, things are dif­fer­ent: “Now we’re see­ing orga­nized attempts by groups to cen­sor mul­ti­ple titles through­out the coun­try with­out actu­al­ly hav­ing read many of these books.”

This rep­re­sents a big shift in the past year. A 2022 poll com­mis­sioned by the ALA found “nation­al bipar­ti­san sup­port for the free­dom to read.” The data indi­cat­ed that over 70% of U.S. vot­ers are against efforts to remove books from pub­lic libraries, includ­ing 75% of Democrats, 70% of Republicans and 58% of Independents.

The wave of chal­lenges in Kentucky last year pre­ced­ed leg­is­la­tion passed by the state leg­is­la­ture this spring that law­mak­ers said would make chal­leng­ing “obscene” mate­r­i­al eas­i­er. It also comes a year after anoth­er bill passed into law grant­ed local offi­cials more pow­er over who sits on the boards that gov­ern libraries.

Senate Bill 5 – spon­sored by Republican Sen. Jason Howell of Murray – man­dat­ed that school dis­tricts have a process in place when it comes to mate­r­i­al chal­lenges. It also defined what sort of mate­r­i­al can be clas­si­fied as “harm­ful to minors.” That bill passed into law with­out Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s sig­na­ture in March.

Adler said all but two of Kentucky’s 171 school dis­tricts already had a pol­i­cy in place and that the bill was “a solu­tion in search of a problem.”

Howell told the Senate, “The great thing about this bill is it keeps us from decid­ing this up here as leg­is­la­tion,” in ref­er­ence to the author­i­ty of school boards to review par­ents’ com­plaints. The far west­ern Kentucky sen­a­tor did not respond to requests for comment.

After the bill was deliv­ered to Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams with­out Beshear’s sig­na­ture, the Republican Party of Kentucky released a state­mentaccus­ing Beshear of tak­ing “the coward’s way out” and not stand­ing up for parental rights in education.

Gilbert said that chal­lenges can be cost­ly and time-con­sum­ing for library sys­tems. Some have poli­cies that include pur­chas­ing enough copies for every mem­ber of an eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee to be able to read and dis­cuss the work before mak­ing a rul­ing on the mate­r­i­al in question.

“In gen­er­al, you put a com­mit­tee togeth­er, and you take a lot of time to con­sid­er that one work. When that sud­den­ly bal­loons to that many titles, then that can’t con­tin­ue to hap­pen in the same way with the same fideli­ty,” Gilbert said. “It quick­ly becomes a ques­tion [of] how do you actu­al­ly address those [chal­lenges] then. In one coun­ty, they’re almost done with the first batch of 20 and anoth­er batch has already come in.”

Gilbert said she and her school librar­i­an col­leagues “want to pro­tect kids all the time” and they’re will­ing to work with par­ents to offer alter­na­tives to any required text they’re con­cerned about their chil­dren reading.

However, she doesn’t think libraries should out­right ban mate­ri­als that could be help­ful for oth­er students.

“There already have been process­es and ways to talk that through and to work with par­ents and – when there’s a prob­lem with a stu­dent and a con­cern – that can be addressed with­out remov­ing the rights of an entire school’s worth of stu­dents,” Gilbert said. “I real­ly feel like, what it’s land­ed us is [that] it’s eas­i­er to take things away now and that con­cerns me.”

What the future holds for chal­lenges in Kentucky’s libraries is dif­fi­cult for Adler to project, but he antic­i­pates more of them.

“Each inde­pen­dent library sys­tem will have to make their own deci­sions as to how they’re going to face these chal­lenges and face these move­ments against some of these titles,” he said. “What I sus­pect is that a num­ber of them are going to go back and review their poli­cies and see in what ways can they work to con­tin­ue to pro­tect the val­ues that are impor­tant to the pro­fes­sion and to ensure that we are ful­fill­ing our mis­sions to pro­vide infor­ma­tion access and mate­r­i­al access to all mem­bers of the commonwealth.”

This sto­ry is repub­lished from WKMS, Murray State’s NPR station.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a net­work of news bureaus sup­port­ed by grants and a coali­tion of donors as a 501c(3) pub­lic char­i­ty. Kentucky Lantern main­tains edi­to­r­i­al inde­pen­dence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for ques­tions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.