In Utah, parents campaigned to ban “The Hate U Give” and “This One Summer” and several other books for their content addressing race, gender and sexuality. In Kansas, parents successfully appealed to the school board to remove over two dozen books for content deemed “inappropriate” and “offensive.” Even worse, in Virgina, two school board members wanted not only to remove the books from libraries, but to burn them.
This isn’t the first time books have been challenged for their content. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” for example, is regularly one of the top 10 most challenged books because of its offensive language and depictions of race. However, while the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that books cannot be banned simply because of their content, the American Library Association reported in September 2021 a 60% increase in book challenges than that of the year previously.
In response to these movements, the ALA published a statement on Nov. 30 addressing the value of intellectual freedom and the First Amendment’s importance regarding the publication of all works of literature.
“Falsely claiming that these works are subversive, immoral, or worse, these groups induce elected and non-elected officials to abandon constitutional principles, ignore the rule of law, and disregard individual rights to promote government censorship of library collections,” the ALA stated.
Similarly, in December, the National Coalition Against Censorship released a joint statement with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, GLAAD, the National Black Justice Coalition and over 600 additional groups. “These ongoing attempts to purge schools of books represent a partisan political battle fought in school board meetings and state legislatures,” the statement read. “The undersigned organizations and individuals are deeply concerned about this sudden rise in censorship and its impact on education, the rights of students, and freedom of expression.”
This certainly isn’t the first time librarians and organizations have had to fight against censorship movements across the country. But these defenders of knowledge persist because they understand the fundamental dangers of echo chambers.
In the age of ever-changing and developing technology, it would be assumed that there would be no room for echo chambers to exist. That the internet and the vast amount of readily available information would serve to eliminate these chambers. However, quite the opposite has proven to be true.
“Individuals empowered to screen out material that does not conform to their existing preferences may form virtual cliques, insulate themselves from opposing points of view, and reinforce their biases. Internet users can seek out interactions with like-minded individuals who have similar values, and thus become less likely to trust important decisions to people whose values differ from their own,” MIT researchers Marshall Van Alstyne and Erik Brynjolfsson wrote.
Echo chambers are fundamentally dangerous because they remove original thoughts and the challenging of ideas. This then limits debates, which are necessary in a society. When these debates do not occur, we do not solve the problems and issues surrounding division and polarization.
Conservatives have historically used book banning as a way to voice their opinions around what should and should not be taught to their children. Often these are beliefs which silence the voices of the underrepresented and marginalized. For children growing up in these conservative areas, if there are no pieces of work which represent the struggles of race or gender and sexuality, then these children are trapped in the echo chambers their parents construct for them, which deprives them of the stimulation of unfamiliar and uncomfortable ideas.
“We should have a complete collection, something that challenges all of our viewpoints, presents lots of different ideas from different people, perspectives and allows us to consider the great body of human knowledge that’s out there,” Will O’Hearn, library services director for the Eugene Public Library, said.
O’Hearn said the library has not received any formal reconsideration requests recently. This is a sign Eugene may be free from the raging book banning movement.
I think sometimes people forget that literature is art. And art makes people feel things. Sometimes it’s happiness, wonderment, sadness, humor and then also frustration and anger,” O’Hearn said. “They’re meant to evoke emotion.”