TWO

In apartheid South Africa, for instance, the notorious Public Relations Act of 1974 permitted the banning of any ‘undesirable’ material. That could include anything from material that offended public morals and religious sensibilities to books that challenged the apartheid ideology or undermined state security.

But the US has always viewed itself as a beacon of democracy – even though it has often failed to live up to its self-declared values and principles. Now, the signs are ominous. In 2021, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance classified the US as a ’backsliding democracy’ for the first time. In 2022, a Tennessee school board removed ‘Maus’ from classrooms. This Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust has previously been banned in Russia. School districts in Florida and Pennsylvania have banned biographies of women, including at one point former First Lady Michelle Obama, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai. Others have carried out wholesale removals of books, often with LGBTQ+ protagonists, based on unsupported charges of ‘obscene’ content.

These moves in the US have parallels with what’s happening in other countries Washington often lectures on human rights and liberal values.

Turkey has banned the sale of books such as Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls – which offers a series of inspiring stories about women in history – to children.

Hungary has banned an entire academic discipline: in 2018, the government officially removed Master’s and PhD programmes that considered gender studies from the list of accredited subjects in the country. In 2021, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban passed a law banning LGBTQ+ content for minors in schools.

More recently, Russia enacted a sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ bill that expands its definition of ‘LGBTQ propaganda,’ targeting books, films, online and public activity, and advertisements. The law was introduced in reaction to a YA novel with LGBTQ+ protagonists.

Brazil, too, has waged similar campaigns against ‘indoctrination’ and ‘gender ideology’ in schools, with lawmakers at all levels of government introducing more than 200 legislative proposals since 2014 to ban gender and sexuality education. Human Rights Watch says that at least 21 laws directly or indirectly banning gender and sexuality education remain in force.

As in the US, these bans run contrary and afoul of constitutional principles, which allow comprehensive sexuality education in Brazil. Educators in South America’s largest nation have reported a chilling effect on their willingness to talk about gender and sexuality in classrooms. Many of them face harassment and intimidation for teaching these subjects.

Teachers in the US have described similar chilling effects due to book bans and other forms of educational censorship, with many proactively removing books and lesson plans from their classrooms to avoid potential backlash.

These trends represent a concerning step backwards for democratic norms: freedom of expression depends on access to literature and information, especially in our schools, where pupils are exposed to a wide range of ideas to prepare them for the challenges of democracy and citizenship.

Students from historically marginalised communities around the world face the most harm when these narratives are removed from classrooms, as it sends the message that their experiences are not socially acceptable or suitable for school.

Book banning and legislative efforts to restrict academic books is anathema to healthy democracies at home and abroad. Fighting back against these coordinated movements is essential to protect free expression and other democratic values across the globe.