The majority of book challenges came from organized groups, and not parents, according to the State of America’s Libraries report published by the American Library Association (ALA).
Approximately 72 percent of book challenges in 2024 came from special interest groups, government entities, elected officials, administrators, and board members. About 16 percent of book challenges came from parents, while five percent of book ban attempts came from individual library users.
“These demands to remove and restrict books and other library materials are not the result of any grassroots or popular sentiment,” the State of America’s Libraries report reads. “The majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from well-funded, organized groups and movements long dedicated to curbing access to information and ideas.”
The reports provided by the American Library Association challenge previous narratives in favor of book bans. Several politicians in the United States have argued for challenges to books they determined inappropriate for children on the basis of parents having the right to choose what their children read. Arguments speaking out against book bans, however, present a different scope.
According to these perspectives, parents with children subjected to book bans are at a disadvantage as someone else is deciding what their kids can access in school libraries and classrooms. This, according to arguments against book bans, impedes the parents’ right to choose what is best for their children by default.
Moms for Liberty, which some have classified as a right-wing extremist group, is allegedly a main driver of book challenges and bans in the United States. “They aren’t always moms, they don’t always have kids, and they definitely don’t care about ‘liberty’ for everyone else,” Paul Bowers of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina said when speaking of the group in 2023.
During the 2023-2024 school year, PEN America documented more than 10,000 instances of book challenges. More than 4,200 unique titles were affected through bans or restrictions, which marked a significant increase from the previous year.