16-02-2025
Race, sex and the Holocaust: As book bans grow across the state, some genres see more bans
As Tennessee faces a record number of book bans and removals since December 2023, there are certain genres and themes consistently among the most-banned items.
With nearly 1,400 books being either fully removed from school libraries or heavily age-restricted between December 2023 and January 2025, pursuant to the controversial 2022 Age-Appropriate Materials Act, the list of titles removed across the state may be long, but the breakdown of individual titles and themes is remarkably shorter.
The top five banned titles across the state are:
In total, there were 1,155 unique titles banned across the state last year.
'We see that nearly 60% of banned titles nationwide are young adult books or younger,' said Kasey Meehan, Freedom to Read program director at PEN America. 'And there's certainly books that depict all sorts of themes. They depict LGBTQ+ identities, they talk about race and racism. More and more we see books that talk about or confront real world issues like grief, death and mental health concerns and sexual violence.'
Numerous titles banned in Tennessee schools deal with youth mental health and social issues, such as 'Far From the Tree: How Children and their Parents Learn to Accept One Another' by Andrew Solomon, banned in a school in Wilson County, 'Coping with Weapons and Violence in Schools and On Your Streets' by Maryann Miller and 'Drug Use and the Family' by Susan Stefano, both removed in schools in Monroe County.
Meehan said a strong theme over the 2023-2024 school year was the increased removal of books that contained a reference to sex in any way.
This theme was strengthened in Tennessee by the 2024 expansion of the Age Appropriate Materials Act to prohibit public school libraries from having books with 'nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse,' or any book that is 'patently offensive … or appeals to the prurient interest.'
While this ban ensnares books such as 'Bioethics: Sex, Genetics and Human Reproduction' by Warren Reich and 'Date Violence' by Elaine Landau, both removed in schools in Monroe County, it especially targets books that discuss gender identity of LGBTQ+ issues, for their discussion of sex-related identity concerns, as well as books that deal with issues of race or racism.
'When we look at those two themes in particular, what's important to recognize is that these issues have been historically underrepresented in our public schools,' Meehan said. 'So if we say that 44% of banned titles feature characters of color, it's not the case that 44% of books in a public school library feature characters of color. It's that these books are being disproportionately banned.'
Even a surprising number of books about the Holocaust were removed in Monroe County.
In addition, some books related to book bans were also banned: the classic 'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray Bradbury was banned in Monroe County, and 'The Year They Burned All The Books' by Nancy Garden in Macon County.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director at the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said these repeated titles and themes are not an accident, but rather the calculated work of small groups of people to ban the same books across the country.
'We see multiple titles challenged in schools and library districts across the country, and often that is an individual or group who will challenge 10 to 30 books all at once,' she said. 'And we're still seeing efforts to place individuals who would like to censor books on library boards and school boards across the country, in order to put in place policies that require censorship of existing library materials or prevent library staff from buying disfavored categories of library materials.'
Efforts made to ban the same book multiple times across the state are not without an end goal: Tennessee is one of only a few states that has the potential to pass statewide bans on books. According to the Age Appropriate Materials Act, any book that is appealed to the Tennessee Textbook Commission, if found to be in violation of the law, would be banned in all public and charter school districts in the state.
Hayden Shadden, general counsel for the commission, confirmed that they have not had any appeals as of publication. Three were filed in December, but subsequently withdrawn by the complainant.
Caldwell-Stone said the push to remove books from schools is antithetical to the Constitution.
'The argument (that school library books should be banned) functions from the premise that students have no First Amendment rights and that government agencies, including school boards, can engage in the kind of censorship that they're not allowed to engage in under the First Amendment,' she said. 'The courts have been very clear on that.'
Meehan said the common argument in support of bans — that children can get the book elsewhere if they want it badly enough — leaves behind a significant number of children.
'We can't say that all students have access to a public library — not all students have access to a Barnes and Noble, or a bookstore, or can purchase their own books,' she said. 'Public school libraries play a really essential role in providing free access to information. This is the purpose of our library systems: to provide access to information. And the more we restrict access to information, the more we weaken our library systems, but also more broadly, the fabric of our democracy.'
The USA TODAY Network - Tennessee's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.
Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@ by phone at 931-623-9485, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: As book bans grow across Tennessee, some genres see more bans
