When you open a book, you expect to follow the perspective of a unique character or characters. That’s what makes books so stimulating and distinctive. Books serve as an experience in a different world that readers can almost escape to. When you finish a good book, you can freely theorize, write about it, and embrace morals it might have encouraged. People tend to form opinions and even stand by what a book talks about.
Unfortunately, when certain books are banned, that special privilege is taken away. Books that mention sensitive topics like race, gender identity, and sexuality is where books might be challenged by U.S. school boards.
One of the main functions of going to school is learning how to think critically and by yourself, so why are books being banned then?
Censoring books with more ‘sensitive topics’ completely defeats the purpose of finding new perspectives to refer to when learning. Each time a book is banned, that author’s writing is shut out to try and limit the so-called “exposure”. However, this exposure is essential to forming opinions and insight. According to the Teachers College of Columbia University, “[Book bans] diminish the quality of education students have access to and restrict their exposure to important perspectives that form the fabric of a culturally pluralist society like the United States.”
What school boards seem to ignore is the fact that students will become more single-minded on sensitive topics because they are limited to reading things that the board believes to be too mature. Boston University says that a “More broadly, fostering diversity of perspectives is central to the mission of a world-class academic institution tasked with generating the ideas that shape a better, healthier world.” As humans, we are not just shaped biologically, but shaped by the people around us. Books exist for the purpose of reading unique views that our close friends or relatives do not or cannot provide.
Learning about different cultures, gender identities, and politics are just some of the many topics that can change the way someone might think or feel. Being an open minded person makes our society more inclusive, diverse, and generally different. Single minded people might be more ignorant towards those topics and might be subconsciously rude because of their lack of perspective.
Book bans not only attack freedom of thought, but also the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and the press, so it makes no sense why banning books should be allowed. School boards are connected to the government, therefore it applies to them. According to Belmont University professor David L. Hudson, Jr.: “Book bans violate the First Amendment because they deprive children or students of the right to receive information and ideas,” explained David L. Hudson Jr, a professor there. Reading about new ideas helps create us as people in a society with different opinions and beliefs on certain topics.
Literature should be as diverse as possible to help people understand different viewpoints on any subject, regardless of how sensitive it is. Putting a censor on books that show different opinions or just tell a different story in general limits their knowledge. Books are essential to information, and banning them deprives people the right to learn.