Efforts to ban books in Oregon libraries on the rise; library patrons and supporters are pushing back

 

By AMANDA WALDROUPE/Oregon ArtsWatch

In December the Grants Pass School District approved removing two books from the Grants Pass High School Library: All Boys Aren’t Blue – George M. Johnson’s  memoir about the author’s black and queer identity, which is among the most frequently challenged and banned books in the country – and Lucky, Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir about being sexually assaulted.

The residents who submitted challenges did not have children attending schools in the Grant Pass district. They also had not read the books.

Book bans, like the recent one in Grants Pass, and the attempts to do so are at an all-time high in public and school libraries, both nationally and in Oregon. Numbers began skyrocketing in 2020, due to various factors, including the Covid-19 shutdown that forced children to attend school virtually, increasing parents’ exposure to what their children were reading.

At the same time, book publishers, seeking to diversify their catalogs and increase sales, are producing more books — especially graphic books and memoirs — by or about marginalized communities, including racial and ethnic minorities and people identifying as LGBTQ.

Those books have become caught up in the culture wars surrounding gay and transgender rights, racial justice, and women’s rights. The election of Donald Trump, in 2016 and 2024, has galvanized efforts on the part of conservative individuals and groups to pursue book bans.

Some states, including Florida, Texas, and Iowa, have enacted statewide bans on scores of books; such bans are being challenged in class action lawsuits brought by book publishers, authors, and parents. Other states, such as Illinois, have passed statewide protections against book bans.

Banning books — removing them from circulation at a library, or other types of access – is seen as a threat to intellectual freedom, broadly defined as the right to read, to be exposed to and consider different ideas, and, simply, to think.

EveryLibrary, a nonprofit that resists book bans, released a statement the day after the November election noting that politicians were elected who “proposed defunding libraries while slandering library workers. The previous Trump administration proposed gutting federal funding for libraries every year he was in office … We expect these threats to increase in depth and scope.”

After four years of responding to increasing numbers of book challenges, Oregon’s librarians are battle-scarred but better prepared, strengthening and clarifying their libraries’ policies regarding challenges, as well as embracing a central characteristic of their profession: engaging in conversation with people who hold opposing viewpoints, educating patrons, and defending free speech, expression, and intellectual freedom.

A growing number of community organizations have formed to support public and school libraries. For example, an Oregon chapter of the national organization Unite Against Book Bans formed earlier this year.

A small group of Tillamook citizens quickly banded together in reaction to a Tillamook School Board vote in August that removed How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez’s 1991 coming-of-age novel about four sisters growing up in New York City in a Dominican household, from the curriculum of a 10th-grade English honors course.

The number of people showing up to testify in support of libraries and against banning and restrictions at school board meetings, library board meetings, and other bodies is growing, in part due to a nonprofit organization that sends text alerts whipping up support.

Some have already seen results: In August, a city councilor in Seaside who wanted to change the public library’s policies was recalled from office by a 63 percent to 37 percent margin.

What is a challenge?

A “challenge” or “materials challenge” refers to a library patron’s request to remove or restrict library material from circulation. A “ban” completely removes the book from circulation, while a “restriction” limits access, restricting who can check the book out or putting the book in a particular section.

A challenge requires submitting a formal application, called a “Request for Reconsideration.” The request is reviewed by the librarian and the library’s governing body, often a library board. It can take close to a year to reach a decision.

Earlier this year, the American Library Association reported that 4,240 books were challenged in 2023 — a 92 percent increase compared to the previous year and the highest number the association has ever recorded.

In school libraries, the numbers are even higher. According to PEN America, a national nonprofit advocating for literature and free expression, there were 10,046 instances of book bans during the 2023-24 school year.

Oregon is no different. Each year, the State Library of Oregon’s Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse publishes a report documenting book challenges in Oregon libraries that occurred between July 1 and June 30 (the state’s fiscal year).

The most recent report, published in September, documents 63 book challenges in public, school, and academic libraries between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024. That is the second highest number the State Library has recorded since it began keeping data in 1987.

The number of challenges to individual items — individual books, particular library programs, or other library services — hit a record high: 151, an increase of 62 percent from last year’s numbers (also a record).

Requests to remove books are not the only type of challenges Oregon’s libraries face.

In September, Ashland’s Public Library removed a pride banner that had hung since 2020. In June, someone fired a BB gun at a window of the Newberg Public Library, which displayed a pride flag. Homophobic graffiti has been found in bathrooms in academic libraries.

At one public library, a display with a list of pride adult books was ripped off and thrown in the trash (library staff repaired and reinstalled the display).

At another public library, “a patron submitted a Request for Reconsideration form for all materials and programs relating to 2SLGBTQIA+.” The State Library of Oregon’s report dryly noted that “the request was denied. The materials and programs remained.”

Book ban attempts not new

Attempts to ban books are not new in American history. Books now regarded as classics have faced fierce backlash. Those include To Kill a Mockingbird, challenged for depicting violence, offensive language, and racism; Fahrenheit 451, challenged for vulgar language and depiction of religion; and 1984, for sexual content (the book was also challenged in 1981 in Jackson County, Fla., for being pro-communist).

People challenge books for a myriad of reasons. “Unsuited to the age group,” containing LGBTQ content, depicts sex, nudity, abuse, and contains profanity are the most common reasons, according to the State Library’s 2024 challenge report.

Those reasons mirror a University of Washington study, authored by six graduate students in the university’s Information School, which analyzed the language patrons use in their arguments.

The most common concern, the study found, was “inappropriate for children.” Historically, concern about what children read has been a top reason for book challenges.

Patrons challenging books use colorful and evocative language reflecting ire and strongly held values and beliefs.

“Promoted cutting off little boys’ penises” and “promoting homosexuality” were two reasons a library patron gave to the Salem Public Library’s deputy director in December 2022, shortly after the patron threw three books — all about the LGBTQ movement and pride-related themes — in the trash.

“The information was only posted in a foreign language,” a patron of the Josephine Community Library District, in Grants Pass, wrote in challenging a Spanish-language job posting on a bulletin board. In 2023, the same patron challenged the library’s Spanish-language section, called “Libros en Espanol.” The patron objected, “Not available to all Americans … Equal access. Patronize funds [for] one ethnicity.”

“Books promoting anti-faith and pro homosexual activities and lifestyle in the children’s and teen sections of the library” was the subject of a June 2023 letter sent to the Fern Ridge Public Library in Veneta, written on behalf of “a number of members in the community.”

“As members of this community, we don’t not [sic] deserve to be marginalized and discriminated against in such a manner,” the letter went on. “The promotion of these materials are harmful, political, and exploit the young minds.”

In April, Cindy Allen of McMinnville, who does not have children attending McMinnville schools, requested that the high school library remove seven books. The books included Beyond Magenta, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Looking for Alaska, and four books by Ellen Hopkins. All the books frequently appear on banned books list.

Allen called the books “pornographic,” “obscene,” “sexually explicit,” and include scenes of underage drinking and “glorified in inappropriate behavior.”

Most challenges are motivated by conservative political beliefs. Some, though, are from a liberal perspective.

“Public money being spent to buy advertising material from arms manufacturers” was the stated reason of a Multnomah County Library patron who, in February 2023, filed a formal Request for Reconsideration to remove Guns & Ammo magazine.

All the challenges were denied. When it comes to determining which books libraries shelve, and why, there are rigorous standards based in library science and free-speech law. Oregon law requires libraries to create policies that follow the American Library Association’s guidelines, on everything from cataloging to collection development to patron confidentiality.

That includes how libraries determine the books it carries. Librarians consider a plethora of criteria: Has the book received critical and positive reviews? Is it on a best-sellers list? Has a patron specifically asked for it?

“There is a lot that goes into what to purchase,” said Marisa Ely, the librarian at Canby Public Library. “It’s not like we put things in carts and click ‘purchase.’”

The legal threshold to ban a book is also very high. Federal courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of free speech and intellectual freedom.

A book, or any form of written information, can be censored if it is labeled “obscene.” That requires passing what is known as “the Miller test.”

The Miller test refers to the three-part definition of obscenity defined by the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Miller v. California. A book can labeled “obscene” if it meets all three of the following criteria:

• The book as a whole — not a page, or even a handful of pages — is found indecent by “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,”
• “Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law,” and
• The book, as a whole, lacks any serious literary, artistic, scientific, or political value.

A court of law is the only entity that can make such a determination.

Most of the time, “when you explain the law, the Constitution, and the Miller test, people get it,” said Julie VanHoose, the librarian of Chetco Community Public Library in Brookings, and will stop pursuing a challenge.

Part of the job?

Don Allgeier, the director of Tillamook County Library, thinks of book challenges as a “pro forma” part of his job. In the past 2 1/2 years, he has responded to nine challenges, five of which were submitted by the same person.

“It’s important for us to have that space for people to be able to say ‘Hey, is this book an appropriate book in the library setting?’” he said. “That part, to me, is normal.”

Librarians, trained in information science, want to explain why a library carries the book, its collection development policies, and to hear a patron’s concerns, finding out whether a patron genuinely finds a book offensive, or if another solution can be found. “We want to know if there is a different material that would balance out that viewpoint,” Canby library’s Ely said.

What is not “so normal,” Allgeier said, is “to get so many requests from one group or one individual.” He also said that once decisions on challenges are made — often not in the requesting patron’s favor — people are “willing to go to secondary tactics,” including intimidation and verbal attacks.

There is a growing trend, in Oregon and around the country, of librarians facing personal attacks, assault, and harassment.

“There is this mentality of getting really aggressive and personal about local issues,” VanHoose said. “There’s been a cultural shift in how we behave politically.”

In 2022, VanHoose oversaw a rancorous year-long challenge to Gender Queer, a 2019 graphic coming-of-age memoir by Maia Kobabe about gender, identity, and living outside the gender binary. The library ended up keeping the book in its collection.

“I was called — to my face — a ‘child groomer,’ a ‘pedophile,’ [and told] that I am supporting pedophiles,” VanHoose said.

She received a death threat, via Facebook, threatening to hang her. “Someone [wrote] ‘I’ll build the gallows,’” she remembered. “By that point, I was already pretty numb. I was worried about my staff. I had a couple employees who were very worried about coming to work.”

In late May, as the Tillamook School Board considered removing How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Allgeier wrote a letter to the editor of the Tillamook Headlight Herald.

“Our collection development is guided by the objective of serving the entire community’s informational needs, not the preferences of any single individual… [and] not politics,” he wrote. “Our library is here for everyone. We always try to have books and other materials that make as many people as possible happy and interested in reading. That’s a big part of what makes libraries so special — they are for everyone, no matter what kinds of books they like to read.”

Recall in Seaside

In Seaside, two people submitted two challenges each, dating their requests for reconsideration Oct. 23, 2023. (Their names, per state public records law, were redacted in copies given to Oregon ArtsWatch, as were many other challenge reports.) They challenged the same two books: And Tango Makes Three and When Aidan Became a Brother.

Both books are among the most frequently challenged books in the country. And Tango Makes Three, published in 2005, tells the story of two male penguins who adopt an orphaned baby penguin. When Aidan Became a Brother, published in 2019, is about Aidan, who begins identifying as a transgender boy and, thus, becomes a big brother.

One challenger objected to And Tango Makes Three due to “the automatic assumption that two male penguins would act as parents,” the challenger wrote. “It goes against the natural order of nature. Showing children this is natural.”

The second challenger wrote that both books were “not appropriate for children.”

The challenges surprised Reading. She never met either patron. “I don’t know if they checked out the books or how they chose those titles,” she said. “They came out of the blue.”

The Seaside Public Library’s Request for Reconsideration forms are not available online, in an effort to encourage patrons interested in submitting a challenge to speak with library staff.

“The first step is usually a conversation, usually with me,” Reading said, echoing a common practice amongst Oregon’s librarians. “It’s about relationship building, hearing someone’s concerns, being open to having those conversations. It’s important to have those conversations.”

It turns out that the two challengers got the forms, via email, from a member of Seaside’s city council, Steve Dillard.

Dillard, elected in 2022, had raised concerns that the library was “incentivizing reading sexually explicit materials.” The issue arose after Banned Books Week, in late September, the weeklong celebration of books that public libraries often observe.

Seaside’s Public Library has celebrated Banned Books Week for decades, and 2023 was no different. Each day, its social media accounts highlighted a different book on the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books list, and, for young readers, the library created a “Banned Books Bingo” and other games.

On Nov. 30, 2023, Reading sat down for a meeting with Dillard and Seaside city manager Spencer Kyle to discuss Dillard’s concerns.

During the meeting, Reading explained the library’s policies and why ensuring access to books  some people may find offensive is important. “I think [Reading] did an excellent job of explaining … why libraries, in general, have certain policies,” Kyle said.

Dillard did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

In Kyle’s view, “the policy that Dillard had some issue with is that the entire collection is available for everyone.” During city council meetings and elsewhere, Dillard argued that children under 18 should not be able to check out sexually explicit books. He never identified specific books he considered to be sexually explicit.

Kyle said Dillard’s concerns were unusual. “In the history of the library, we’ve never had a parent raise that complaint,” he said, adding that the Seaside Public Library “is highly regarded. The community over many years and many decades has been a very strong supporter of the library.”

Last January, the Seaside Library Board held a special work session to review the requests for reconsideration. The board voted not to restrict or remove either book.

Around the same time, Dillard asked the Seaside City Council to review the library’s policies, seeking to change the policy regarding the books children under 18 could check out.

“He had ideas that he proposed,” Kyle said. “As a city manager, I deal with practical policy implementation. How would you physically do that? I never received an answer from the council or Dillard on that.”

In Kyle’s mind, the only way to restrict children’s access would have required “some sort of ID process” allowing children to enter “the children’s section but not the young adult section.” Another option included renovating the library, which Kyle said was not financially feasible.

Kyle never supported changing the library’s policies. “I did not see a practical or objective way for the city to decide which books should and shouldn’t be on a certain list,” he said, adding, “we thought this is a parental responsibility. Right now, a child must get their parent’s consent to get a library card.”

On April 22, the Seaside City Council met to discuss the library’s policies. Dillard read a prepared statement. Afterward, one city councilor criticized him for not listing the books Dillard considered sexually explicit. “You’ve never given titles of those books. It’s important for us to know what your belief of sexually explicit titles are. The library is a long-held bastion of free speech for everyone,” the councilor said.

After nearly an hour-long discussion, the city council dropped the issue from further discussion.  During a council meeting later that evening, 15 people gave public testimony in support of the library.

Jessica Greenlee, who has lived in Seaside for four years, felt spurred to action after a conversation with a neighbor about the possibility of restricting children’s access at the public library.

Greenlee grew up in Alaska and spent a lot of time at her school and public libraries. “Alaska … is a little isolating,” she said. “Books were a way to explore the world, to learn about people other than yourself. It’s always been a big part of my life.”

She watched a few city council meetings online. After one, she posted on the social media site Nextdoor: Were other people concerned by Dillard’s request? Soon afterward, a group met at Seaside Brewing Company.

That became the first meeting of Freedom to Read Seaside, a grassroots group that supports literacy, access to books, and resists censorship.

Greenlee met with Dillard soon afterward. “I was discouraged by his dismissive attitude toward the feeling of the community,” she said. As another city council meeting approach, Freedom to Read Seaside wrote a petition, urging Dillard to drop the issue. In less than 24 hours, 176 people signed the petition (Seaside’s population is around 7,000).

Dillard persisted. Soon afterward, Greenlee filed a petition to recall Dillard; it quickly surpassed the number of signatures required to trigger a special election. She and fellow Freedom to Read Seaside members spent nearly a month knocking on doors. Greenlee “consistently” heard the question, “‘Why is this what our council is spending its time on?’”

“This is so far down the totem pole on the list of things,” she said.

When the recall election took place Aug. 7, 63 percent voted in favor of ejecting Dillard from office. His last day was Aug. 23.

Supporters often silent

In Oregon, Seaside’s recall election has been the most obvious and dramatic show of support for libraries. As challenges persist, there is growing awareness that supporters of libraries and the freedom to read are a silent majority.

In Tillamook, 700 people signed a petition in September asking the school board not to remove How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. The book remains banned from the school curriculum.

Darin Stewart agrees that people advocating for book bans represent a tiny minority. “The vast majority want represented, diverse, and inclusive collections available,” he said.

Stewart is the founder and executive director of Parents Defending Schools and Libraries, an Oregon nonprofit he started in 2023 to alert parents and community members, such as himself, that a school board or other entity was considering banning or restricting books.

“I always found out that a book had been banned, removed, relocated after the damage was done,” said Stewart.

Stewart, who works in the technology and IT sector, developed a tool that allows people to sign up for text alerts notifying them of a school or library board meeting that will discuss or vote on restricting books.

“I wanted to provide a way to let parents know what was happening in advance,” he said. “The other thing we wanted to do is not only alert them, but give them suggestions of what you can do.”

A text alert from Parents Defending Schools and Libraries will list the board meeting, day and time, a link to attend virtually, and suggested talking points about “why these books are important,” Stewart said.

“Parents showing up or sending an email or being present on a school board meeting or Zoom call does make a difference,” Stewart said. “Just the attention is enough to get people to reconsider.”

On Oct. 14, the McMinnville School Board unanimously voted to uphold its decision to retain seven books in the high school’s library, after the challenger appealed the decision. During the board meeting’s public comment period, nine people spoke. Of those, seven voiced support for the board’s vote (the challenger was the only person to speak in favor of removal).

Last year, the Canby School Board considered removing 36 books from the high school’s library. The list of books included Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved, John Green’s Looking for Alaska, and Jeannette Walls’ acclaimed memoir The Glass Castle.

Dozens of Canby High School students protested the proposal, marching in front of the high school and holding signs that read “why these books?,” “trans lives are not pornographic,” and “banning books & history is not freedom.”

The school board voted to remove one book — Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita — and restrict access to four other books.

Soon afterward, the Canby Current wrote an April Fool’s joke article. “Council okays request to remove all books from Canby Public Library,” the headline read, and went on to “report” that 20,000 books would be removed from the Canby library.

The article, published on April 1 and authored by “April Fulse,” was clearly fake. But the school board’s proposal created enough uproar that library patrons wanted to make sure it wasn’t a joke.

“Dozens of library patrons and supporters were calling and coming in, demanding to know why,” Ely, the Canby librarian, said. “People really thought we had removed 20,000 books. A lot of folks were angry.”

Ely remembers that time, between the demand to check out books on the school board’s proposed ban list and the fallout from the April Fool’s article, as “busy” and “stressful.” It also ended up being encouraging.

“Despite the confusion that article created,” she said, “it was really heartwarming to see that we had more support than a lot of us even realized.”

• Amanda Waldroupe is a freelance journalist and writer based in Portland. This story was the first in a three-part series by Oregon ArtsWatch exploring attempted book bans in Oregon libraries. To see the rest of the stories, go to the ArtsWatch website.