New data shows US authorities ban majority of books with race and gender themes

Books focusing on race and LGBTQ+ subjects were the majority of those attacked by book bans across the US in the past year.

A new study by PEN America has revealed that the majority of books banned in US schools were about racial or sexual diversity. Of the 4,218 unique banned titles in the 2023-2024 school year, 36% featured fictional characters or real people of colour. 29% of banned books included LGBTQ+ characters, people, or themes.

Today, more than half of all American schoolchildren are people of colour, yet across the country there has been a concerted attempt to reduce students’ access to literature on race.

Digging into the details of the books banned, PEN found that of historical and biographical books banned, 44% featured people of colour with 29% specifically featuring Black people.

“This targeted censorship amounts to a harmful assault on historically marginalized and underrepresented populations – a dangerous effort to erase their stories, achievements, and history from schools,” said Sabrina Baêta, senior manager for PEN America’s Freedom to Read programme.

“When we strip library shelves of books about particular groups, we defeat the purpose of a library collection that is supposed to reflect the lives of all people. The damaging consequences to young people are real.”

Often books on LGBTQ+ themes are accused of exposing children to sexually explicit material as justification for their bans. However, PEN analysed that of the 4,218 books banned, 31% had references to sexual experiences but with minimal detail with just 13% describing sexual experiences “on the page”.

There were over 10,000 book bans across the US in the timeframe, according to the PEN research. They point to an alarming rise in “white supremacist and Christian nationalist ideology” as the root cause of these bans and why they statistically target race and queer literature.

PEN’s research covered the last school year. Since Donald Trump came into office at the beginning of 2025, the newly re-elected president has brought in wide-reaching policies to reduce access to education on diversity.

A Department of Defence memo stripped 67,000 children in 160 Pentagon schools across the US and 11 countries – including 65 schools in Germany, Türkiye, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, and Belgium – from access to books on topics such as gender and race.

This became headline news when actor Julianne Moore’s children’s book ‘Freckleface Strawberry’ was flagged for a ban for its tale of a girl accepting her freckles.

Trump’s DEI bans have been wide-reaching, removing materials on Black History Month, typically celebrated in February, from DoD classrooms.

Earlier this month, the Department of Education’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor issued a letter that threatened to withhold federal funds to educational institutions that engage in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training, programming, and discipline.