American Library Association report on 'book bans' blasted by conservative scholar

A new report on so-called "book bans" from the American Library Association is drawing criticism from a prominent conservative education scholar who recently testified before a Senate committee on the topic of book bans.

The report from the ALA said that there have been "695 attempts to censor library materials" and that 1,915 "unique titles" have been challenged in school and public libraries across the country from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31. The ALA said this represents a 20% increase from 2022.

“These attacks on our freedom to read should trouble every person who values liberty and our constitutional rights,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said in a press release. “To allow a group of people or any individual, no matter how powerful or loud, to become the decision-maker about what books we can read or whether libraries exist, is to place all of our rights and liberties in jeopardy.”

But the so-called "book bans" are typically centered on books that contain gratuitous depictions of sexual behavior, Max Eden, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner.