The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Friday dismissed 11 complaints and six allegations related to book bans, saying it was ending “Biden’s book ban hoax.”

PEN America counted more than 10,000 instances of school book bans in the 2023-2024 school year, nearly triple the number in the previous year. Book bans in United States public school classrooms and libraries are no hoax. 

You don’t have to take our word for it. Florida’s Department of Education published its own list of books banned within the state. Utah is continuing to add to a “No-Read List” of 15 books now officially banned statewide, and refers to them as “statewide bans” on its own FAQ. South Carolina enacted regulations that allow the state Board of Education to decide the fate of books in schools with “sexual conduct” if a district decision to retain them is appealed; so far seven books have been banned statewide as a result. Tennessee has its own statewide ban law now, too. And a Missouri law made it a misdemeanor for librarians and teachers to distribute any material deemed “harmful to minors.” 

“For more than three years we have countered the rhetoric that book bans occurring in public schools across this country are a ‘hoax,’” said PEN America Freedom to Read Director Kasey Meehan. “This kind of language from Washington – from the federal government –   is truly alarming and dismissive of the students, educators, librarians, and authors who have firsthand experiences of censorship in classrooms and school libraries. Since 2021, we have meticulously recorded nearly 16,000 instances of book bans – where access to books is revoked from the students who are the intended readers. These bans most often happen when “commonsense processes” are ignored and state legislation is imposed to restrict students’ right to read and learn.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the leader of the biggest book-banning state government in the nation, similarly described book bans as a “hoax” before having the state compile its own list of school book bans

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced that it had rescinded guidance about book bans and would no longer employ a book ban coordinator, a position created by President Joe Biden

The 17 cases investigated by the OCR involved the removal of books with LGBTQ+ characters and characters of color, and whether this created a hostile environment for students from marginalized communities.

The new statement said that removal of books “is a question of parental and community judgment, not civil rights.” We disagree.

Students have constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights at school. Censorship of literature–inside schools or not–deprives young people of the ability to navigate the world around them and their futures. PEN America stands wholeheartedly behind students’ rights to read and learn freely.

“We will continue to raise awareness and resistance to ongoing book bans in defense of students’ freedom to read. All students deserve to see themselves and the world around them reflected in the books shelved within their public schools.”