America is facing what Publishers Weekly calls “an unprecedented surge in book bans and censorship efforts being pushed by right-wing groups in communities across the nation.” This week, the White House moved to reverse the trend by appointing a new coordinator in the Department of Education to “spearhead a response to the rising number” of book bans in states throughout the nation.

As part of its celebration of Pride Month, on June 8, the Biden-Harris Administration took several steps to protect LGBTQ+ communities from “attacks on their rights and safety.” A highlight of these actions is the appointment of a “new coordinator” in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights who will “support its ongoing work to define the rights of LGBTQ+ students and other underserved communities.” According to a White House press release, the as-yet-unnamed coordinator will “address the growing threat that book bans pose for the civil rights of students” by training schools on how “books that target specific communities and create a hostile school environment…may violate federal civil rights laws.”

The White House announcement comes two weeks after the Department of Education announced a new understanding with the Forsyth County Georgia School District that stopped its efforts to remove library books featuring Black and LGBTQ+ characters. After the agreement, the White House issued a statement that said, “Across the country, our nation faces a spike in book bans—efforts that disproportionately strip books about LGBTQ+ communities, communities of color, and other communities off of library and classroom shelves…Book banning erodes our democracy, removes vital resources for student learning, and can contribute to the stigma and isolation that LGBTQ+ people and other communities face.”

A 100-year-old non-profit organization called “PEN America” recently reported that the 2022-2023 school year “has been marked…by an escalation of book bans and censorship in classrooms and school libraries across the United States.” It found many new laws that “censor ideas and materials in public schools” and “broad new efforts…to label certain books ‘harmful’ and ‘explicit’” despite surveys that find over 70% of all parents oppose such bans. PEN identified nearly 1,500 instances of book banning in schools, affecting 874 different titles in the first half of this school year, a 30% increase over last year.

Inside Higher Education, a news organization serving the higher education community, has labeled the current censorship campaigns the “Ed Scare,” a reference to the days of McCarthyism and its Red Scare that has been “resuscitated in a new form.” The group notes that actions by state and local legislators, which have largely been focused on K-12, are now expanding to colleges and universities to “prohibit…accepted ideas and concepts that have stood in curricula for many decades.”

Those who are fighting against the bans find them primarily focused on race and racism, sexual orientation, and gender identity. For example, Oklahoma has banned all books about LGBTQ+ issues from libraries; South Carolina has forbidden sex education to minors; and Florida, Iowa, Mississippi and Indiana have all installed cameras and other methods to aid in “teacher surveillance.”

In addition to sex and gender, many of these bills target the teaching of The 1619 Project, which according to the New York Times, “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery at the very center of our national narrative.”

The White House announcement follows a similar effort in California to stop book bans led by Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and Tony Thurmond, the State Superintendent of Public Education. The threesome wrote a letter to all school superintendents and principals in the State on June 1 that aimed to “assist (them) with fielding requests within your community while you continue to support your students and their educational rights.”

Newsom’s letter provided legal, historical and practical guidance to education professionals. It began by explaining that “communities across California and the nation are being confronted with threats that invoke a darker past. In the first half of the 2022–23 school year alone, 1,477 books were banned nationally, with teachers and librarians threatened with prison time for shelving the wrong book.”

The letter explained that book bans, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the landmark 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines School District, are constitutionally restricted. That Court decision said, “It can hardly be argued that ...students ... shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” It explained that local educational agencies do have “broad discretion in the management of school affairs…this discretion must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.” Thus, books may not be removed from school library shelves simply because “officials dislike the ideas contained in those books.” These restrictions, they wrote, apply to curriculum as well.

The letter cited state laws, primarily the California Education Code, that support “a representative and unbiased curriculum and protect a student’s right to freedom of speech.” It clarified that schools may not “adopt textbooks…that promote discriminatory bias against or reflect adversely on persons…on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, gender expression, religion, disability, sexual orientation, immigration status or any other protected characteristic. California law strictly prohibits discrimination on any of these bases.” He further clarified that only speech that is obscene, libelous, or capable of creating “a clear and present danger of the commission of unlawful acts” may be blocked.

Critics of book bans understand that book bans are not new. But they cringe at what they call “the scale of the effort.” Inside Higher Education found 156 “educational gag order bills introduced in 39 states since January 2021.” It is encouraging that the White House and California are fighting back. But it is discouraging that the First Amendment and our democracy have to fight so hard in 2023 to protect what should be understood by all as a crucial constitutional freedom.