Many students at Bradley critical of book banning

The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Production course.

by Madison Bibbey

Staff Writer

Eight books that have been challenged or banned in the last 20 years are stacked on a chair. Photo taken by Madison Bibbey.

Book banning is a form of censorship. Book banning is when a government, State, school district, etc. bans a book from school curriculum, libraries, and bookstores. For years a wide variety of books have been banned all across the country affecting millions of students. Freshman Jarai Bah does not support book banning “because it limits the amount of perspective or knowledge” students have access to. According to NBC news, during the 2021-2022 school year around 1600 books were banned.

So why are books being banned? Most often books are banned to protect children from offensive language and sexually explicit themes. However many books being banned “are mostly related to the LGBTQ community” freshman Kanya Garcia Gomez stated. The American Library Association backs up Garcia Gomez’s statement with the top 3 most widely challenged books in 2021. They were : Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe for LGBTQ+ content and sexually explicit images, Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison for LGBTQ+ content and for being sexually explicit, and All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson for LGBTQ+ content, profanity, and being sexually explicit. So, many of the recently challenged books are being targeted for LGBTQ+ content and being considered to be sexually explicit.

On January 12th of 2023 students at Big Walnut High School walked out in protest over a book ban. Parents challenged around 20 books to the school board. Bradley English teacher Mrs. Fought expressed that “books can be some of our best teachers”. Despite this pretty common viewpoint among teachers and students, parents keep pushing more book bans.

One of the books parents appealed to at Big Walnut was Looking For Alaska by John Green. The book had already been evaluated by a committee consisting of the assistant superintendent, the building principal, the district’s media specialist, a teacher who teaches the class, a Sunbury Community Library representative, and two parents of students in the class. The committee recommended unanimously to keep the book in the curriculum. The book was also not required reading, it was an option for students. The students protested the appeal to ban this book by organizing a walk out on Thursday January 12th. The students got what they wanted as it was announced that the committee voted to keep the book.

However some people have questioned if book banning violates the first amendment. The first amendment protects freedom of speech. So is banning books denying people freedom of speech? Well in a Supreme Court ruling in 1982 ruled that public schools can bar books that don’t fit the curriculum or are “pervasively vulgar” but not because they personally disagree with the ideas. However the meaning of "pervasively vulgar" has been left up to interpretation.

If a school board can find a reason to categorize a book as inappropriate then they can ban a book. Bah expressed that they think the decision to ban books is mostly based on people “disliking books that decide to speak out about things”. Many students don’t like the idea of book banning. They want a wide variety of books in their school and curriculum. So book banning still remains a hot topic between students, teachers, parents, and even government officials.