Book Bans in North America: When Libraries Become Battlegrounds
- Justin Thomas
- Nov 12
- 6 min read
A Comparative Look at U.S. and Canadian K–12 Education (2019–2025)
School libraries are a battleground now. In 2019, book challenges were a rarity — a few scattered objections, barely a tremor in the wider culture. But by 2025, they’ve exploded into more than 20,000 bans across U.S. schools alone. Books that parents never thought twice about — that you maybe read yourself — are being pulled from shelves. The stories didn't change, didn't magically get more dangerous.
So what happened? Are we the danger?
What's happening isn't about books. It is epistemological gatekeeping (controlling what counts as knowledge, deciding which truths are allowed to exist or be taught).
It’s when power doesn’t just shape opinion, but defines reality itself by limiting what people can know or question.
When legislators decide which histories students can encounter, which identities can be acknowledged, and which realities are "appropriate," they're not protecting children. They're engineering what counts as knowable truth.
The question isn't whether schools expose or shield—it's whether education trains citizens to navigate complexity or to accept curation.
The Numbers: A Surge in Censorship
United States:
2023–24: 10,046 book bans recorded by PEN America
2024–25: 6,870 bans across 23 states and 87 school districts
Concentrated in: Florida, Texas, and other conservative-majority states
Legal mechanisms: State laws like Florida's HB 1467 and Texas's HB 900 institutionalize the removal process
Canada:
2022–23: 118 library challenges — the highest in recorded Canadian history
Incidents remain localized and administratively managed
Legal framework: Charter of Rights (Section 2(b)) and landmark rulings like Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36 provide stronger protections
The contrast is stark: The U.S. exhibits systematic, politically mobilized censorship. Canada shows emerging tensions, but constitutional safeguards and cultural norms of pluralism keep challenges smaller and less organized.
What's Being Banned (And Who It Targets)
The pattern is consistent across both countries: books about race, gender identity, and sexuality are disproportionately targeted.
In the United States: Books featuring LGBTQ+ themes or addressing systemic racism dominate ban lists. Titles like Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson, and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison appear repeatedly.
In Canada: Challenges often center on perceived racism or "age-inappropriate" content — recent disputes include books about residential schools and LGBTQ+ representation.
But the irony runs deeper.
The bans don't stop at new voices — they've turned on the very works that warned us this would happen. Classics like: 1984, Brave New World, and The Catcher in the Rye were written to expose systems that manufacture obedience while disguising it as order.
Each revealed how power shapes truth: through language, morality, and the quiet conditioning of what people are permitted to question.
That these titles now face restriction is no coincidence. To censor a book about thought control is to reenact its warning. The same fear that silenced dissidents in Orwell's Oceania now polices classrooms under the banner of "parental rights."
Why these books?
Because they affirm the experiences of those history tried to erase. They make visible what dominant narratives prefer to keep invisible — marginalized identities, colonial legacies, and uncomfortable truths. For some parents and policymakers, that visibility itself feels threatening.
The American Library Association's data confirms it: authors of colour and LGBTQ+ authors bear the heaviest impact.
When books are removed, it isn't random — it's strategic. What's being restricted isn't just literature, but perspective.
Legal Mechanisms
United States:
In places like Florida and Texas, book bans aren’t just outrage — they’re law.
Florida HB 1467 (2022) forces schools to post every library title online, lets anyone file a challenge, and mandates removal while a book is “under review.” Educators who resist can face liability.
Texas HB 900 (2023) bans “sexually explicit” material (vaguely defined), requires vendors to rate books, and gives state officials power to overrule local boards.
These laws don’t respond to censorship — they build it. They create an assembly line for erasing stories.
Canada:
Canada’s system runs on oversight, not outrage. Book challenges are handled through administrative review, bound by reasonableness and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Section 2(b)) — which protects freedom of expression and access to information.
In Chamberlain v. Surrey (2002), the Supreme Court ruled that school boards can’t ban books based solely on moral or religious discomfort. Boards must serve students, not belief systems.
The result? Challenges still happen — but censorship has to fight uphill against the law, not flow downhill through it.
The Educational Equity Problem
When books are banned, the impact isn't neutral.
Underrepresented students lose access to literature that affirms their identities and experiences.
For LGBTQ+ Students: Books that validate identity, model healthy relationships, and counter isolation. When these titles disappear, so does permission to exist openly. The message is clear: your story is inappropriate for public space, your truth a private inconvenience.
For Students of Colour: Narratives about systemic racism, historical injustice, and cultural identity. Removing works like The Bluest Eye or Between the World and Me doesn’t just erase pain — it rewrites history into something easier to digest. Erasure masquerades as protection, but what it protects is comfort, not truth.
For All Students: The loss is broad and insidious. Book bans limit exposure to difference — and by extension, limit the imagination itself. They don’t simply dictate which stories are read; they shape how young people learn to think. When a system curates what can be known, it also curates what can be questioned. Ignorance stops being accidental and becomes designed.
The research is clear: students grow when they see themselves reflected in literature, and when they’re challenged by experiences beyond their own. The banning of books undermines both — replacing the messy work of understanding with the tidy illusion of control.
Why This Is Happening Now
The surge in book bans isn't accidental. It's the product of organized political mobilization and cultural polarization.
The Drivers:
1. Culture War Politics Books have become proxies for larger debates about race, gender, and whose version of America (or Canada) prevails. Banning books signals ideological alignment.
2. Parental Rights Movements Rhetoric around "protecting children" frames schools as threats rather than trusted institutions. This erodes faith in educators and centralizes control with politically active parents.
3. Legislative Enabling In the U.S., state laws don't just permit book challenges — they incentivize them. Legislators gain political capital by positioning themselves as defenders of "innocence."
4. Coordinated Campaigns Organizations like Moms for Liberty and Florida Citizens Alliance provide templates, model legislation, and lists of "objectionable" books. This isn't grassroots — it's orchestrated.
What Needs to Change
If we're serious about protecting intellectual freedom and educational equity, here's what policymakers, school boards, and educators must do:
1. Define Terms Clearly
"Age-appropriate" and "educationally relevant" are wielded as censorship tools because they're undefined. Establish clear, transparent criteria that can't be weaponized arbitrarily.
2. Publish Challenge Logs
Transparency matters. Districts and provinces should maintain public records of challenged materials, the reasons given, and outcomes. Sunlight is a disinfectant.
3. Set Representation Benchmarks
School libraries should reflect the diversity of students and society. Establish collection policies with measurable inclusion goals.
4. Train Educators on Intellectual Freedom
Librarians and teachers need professional development on navigating challenges, understanding First Amendment/Charter rights, and advocating for diverse materials.
5. Conduct Equity Audits
Regularly assess which students have access to affirming literature and which are systematically excluded. Use data to guide policy.
The Bottom Line
Book bans in North America reveal deep cultural polarization and structural weaknesses in safeguarding intellectual freedom.
In the United States, censorship has become systematic, legislatively enabled, and politically rewarded.
In Canada, incidents remain smaller but signal emerging tensions that constitutional protections may not fully contain if political will shifts.
The stakes are clear:
Do schools exist to expose students to the world's complexity, or to curate a sanitized version of it?
Do marginalized students deserve to see themselves in literature, or should their identities remain invisible?
Is access to diverse perspectives a civic right, or a cultural battleground?
The answer determines what kind of education — and what kind of society — we're building.
Because when we ban books, we're not just removing pages from shelves.
We're deciding whose stories get told, whose experiences matter, and which students we're willing to leave behind.
References:
American Library Association. (2025). Book ban data & Top 10 most challenged books.https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data
Canadian School Libraries. (2023). Book Challenges and Censorship in Canada's School Libraries.https://www.canadianschoollibraries.ca
Centre for Free Expression. (2024). Canadian Library Challenges Database. https://cfe.torontomu.ca
PEN America. (2025). The Normalization of Book Banning: Index of School Book Bans 2024–2025.https://pen.org/report/the-normalization-of-book-banning/
Supreme Court of Canada. (2002). Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, 2002 SCC 86.
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