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Update Published Oct. 2, 2025: This article, originally published in 2024, has been updated to reflect the latest findings in PEN America’s banned books report, “Banned in the U.S.A.” The list at the bottom of this story represents the titles that have been banned by school districts, according to PEN America, during the 2024-25 school year. as noted in its most recent update, “The Normalization of Book Banning.”
PEN America, a prominent nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech, recently released an index of banned books that lays out the cold, harsh reality that has taken hold of many school districts across America.
“In 2025, book censorship in the United States is rampant and common,” the report states. “Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.”
Accompanying the “Banned in the USA” report is PEN America’s latest Index of School Book Bans, published in November. Comparing this latest list of books banned in Texas school districts, taken from the 2023-24 school year and comparing it to the previous list is jarring for a couple of reasons. First, Texas districts banned about 1,000 fewer books that school year than in the previous year. And second, the districts with the largest number of banned books in 2022-23 barely even register in the latest list.
Texas ranks second in the nation with 1,738 banned books from only seven districts. Clearly, a small number of districts are carrying the heaviest loads when it comes to banning books. The study called out Texas as one of the states where researchers say that book banning has become routine.
While we explore the specific trends that have led us to this escalated climate of censorship in this report, it is important to remember the big picture,” the 2025 PEN America report states. “These attacks on students’ rights and educational institutions are the symptoms of a much larger disease: the dismantling of public education and a backsliding democracy.”
Sabrina Baete, a researcher who worked on the index, told the Observer in 2024 that the list is compiled with publicly available data, which is a factor in her estimation that the number of titles on the banned book index is likely lower than what is truly the case across the country.
There’s also the rather simple math that states a book can be removed from a school’s library only once. Maia Kobabe’s controversial graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir, one of the books districts across the United States have banned the most, for example, can in fact, be taken away permanently by a district just once.
But then there’s the “soft censorship” element. PEN America’s 2024 research suggested that librarians and decision makers are preemptively deciding to not add books they fear could elicit a negative response from some parents, rather than stocking some titles that discuss gender, LGBTQ issues, race or ethnicity.
“The restrictions on books and access to authors, stories, and information are today having far-reaching implications,” the study’s conclusion reads. “In the third year of this worsening book banning crisis, the defense of the core principles of public education and the freedom to read, learn, and think is as necessary now as ever.”
Book Ban Definition
Over the past few years, debate centered on the definition of “banned” and what constitutes a book ban has become a hot topic. In the study, PEN America details exactly how it comes to its conclusions.
“PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished, either temporarily or permanently,” the study explains.
Here’s a look at the books banned by various school districts across Texas.
