Oshkosh Public Library director Darryl Eschete has dealt with calls for censorship of public libraries for years as a librarian in Louisiana, Iowa and now in Wisconsin. He is wary of the rising challenges to literature and its effect on individual liberty and the right to information.
A quarter of Wisconsin school districts have received challenges to a combined total of 1,617 books since 2020, with 667 books being removed or age restricted.
“‘Banning’ — forbidding the public from being able to find information or works of expression — is the easy question for me: it’s unacceptable,” Eschete told The Daily Cardinal. “It’s the worst kind of social control and shows a great lack of faith in people being able to discern what kinds of information is worthy of consideration or that they need in their lives.”
Calls to ban books have found a foothold in the Wisconsin Legislature through bills such as AB 309, which would have banned the use of school funds for the purchase of “obscene” material, according to a report from PEN America. Book bans violate the First Amendment and make children less likely to become informed voters as adults, according to the ACLU of Wisconsin.
Although libraries in Oshkosh have relatively low pressure to remove books, Eschete is on guard about what these bans mean for the accessibility of knowledge in public libraries.
“I think the outright banning or removal of any information by governmental forces, however powerless otherwise, (like a library board), is an affront to individual conscience and curiosity,” he said.
Eschete also believes challenging books “breeds both paranoia and contempt” of others in a way that is not conducive to good political discourse.
“The only contact I’ve had from anyone who wanted to see anything removed or restricted came early last spring from a local policy maker who met with me to express that she thought some of the material we had in the children’s area was inappropriate,” Eschete said. “We met and discussed it openly, and the matter blew over.”
The National Women’s Law Center posits that challenges to books with LGBTQ+, feminist or racial themes silences the voices of marginalized communities in literature and sends a message that these identities are not wanted.
Books act as tools for children to reflect on their lives, peer into the lives of others and develop empathy, according to the Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors metaphor by children’s literature expert Rudine Sims Bishop. Exposure to unfamiliar viewpoints can help develop children into more informed future voters by making them aware of the struggles of others, the ACLU of Wisconsin argued.
The American Library Association found that the majority of the most frequently challenged books in 2022 were targeted for LGBTQ+ content and alleged sexually explicit material (“Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe) with other issues including race relations (Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye) and drug use (Ellen Hopkins’ “Crank”). Eschete views this as censorship that opposes liberty and intellectual progress.
Over half of American adults, regardless of party affiliation, oppose book banning in schools in spite of vocal efforts by prominent right-wing politicians and advocacy groups to pull books from shelves, according to a poll conducted by NPR. Book challengers often use information from larger national groups when deciding what books to target, according to Wisconsin Watch.
One leading organization is Moms for Liberty, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as an extremist group. In their 111-page document on what books they challenge, the group singles out allegedly “vulgar” quotes from books found in high schools written predominantly by LGBTQ+ people, people of color and women to argue why they should be pulled from shelves.
Despite the current nature of book challenges, Eschete’s ultimate warning to prospective censors is that this can eventually become a double-edged sword.
“One tactic I’ve used in my career is explaining — truthfully — to someone upset about a book that no matter what ideological or sociopolitical or religious viewpoint a would-be ‘book banner’ represents, there is a whole other group of ‘banners’ out there who would purge and hide information that that person holds dear and that, if there aren’t people arguing against censorship, it truly is a predictable slippery slope and a downward spiral of challenge and counter-challenge by opposing factions in a divided society,” Eschete said.
The ALA recommends those who want to fight censorship in their local community use their voice to speak out against book bans at local library board meetings and on social media and to vote in the upcoming elections at all levels of government for candidates who defend the right to free speech.
