There is a small glimmer of hope for folks who agree that banning books is an egregious infringement of people’s rights and causes more harm than any perceived good. Beginning in 2023 and carrying into 2024, several states began to fight back against book banning, according to a report by Kelly Jensen for BookRiot. Starting with a landmark legislation passed in Illinois in May 2023 (which went into effect January 2024), state officials have been putting forth bills to limit the ability to ban and censor library materials based on discriminatory and partisan principles. 

Let’s start off with a little context. The rate of book challenges and bans across the US have seen drastic increases when comparing numbers before 2020 and after 2020. According to the American Library Association (ALA) in 2019 there were 246 reported attempts to censor books and 276 unique titles that were included in these bans. Compare that to 2021 when 602 attempts were made to ban books, which included 1,858 unique titles. That is roughly 144 percent increase in attempts made and 573 percent increase in unique titles targeted. Those numbers have continued to rise since 2023, seeing the highest numbers to date. The largest targets of these book bans are against LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC authors and stories. These bans impact public schools and libraries by forcing them to remove these stories from their shelves and keeping them out of the hands of young readers. If you can search back to when you were in grade school (maybe it was a little while ago; maybe it was recent), this is a period of intense change, self-discovery, and self-development. These bans prohibit kids and young adults from accessing stories that may help them feel seen and understood in a tumultuous world or from learning and understanding viewpoints and life experiences that differ from their own. While I could go on about the adverse effects of these bans (and many people have already), I want to focus on the positive.

Illinois officials signed bill HB2789 which seeks “to encourage and protect the freedom of libraries and library systems to acquire materials without external limitation and to be protected against attempts to ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to books or other materials” (Illinois General Assembly Section 1). The bill states that libraries within the state are required to provide all necessary materials to benefit the community and should adopt the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights in regard to the equality of material provided (Illinois General Assembly Section 1). They utilize library grants as a tool to incentivize libraries to adhere to these principles. If libraries do not comply then they could lose access to grants that are vital to library function. I may not agree with weaponizing something so vital to libraries in this effort, but I can at least appreciate what these bills are seeking to do. They address the very real threats of discrimination, censorship, and partisan politics that seek to control the dissemination of information.

California, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont, and Washington have had success in passing legislation to prohibit book bans in their states. Oregon, my home state, attempted such a bill in 2024 as well, but it was stonewalled in the proceedings. We are entering a new political landscape in 2025, however I hope state leaders will see the precedents that others are setting and continue to push to protect the rights of readers and the next generation.

Written by Marissa Muraoka.