October 22, 2024

By Huda Hassan

Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos Getty Images

Last August, a retired special-education teacher named Holly Hall joined a rally of grandparents warring against book censorship in Temecula, a small Southern California town. Locals had gathered to oppose a school-board decision to ban a social-studies reader, Social Studies Alive!, for citing Harvey Milk — the first openly gay politician elected in the state. “The Harvey Milk reference was in the supplemental materials,” 72-year-old Hall says, “which meant that it wouldn’t have even been mentioned in some classes.”

The world of literature is currently ablaze with rapidly escalating book bans targeting narratives and histories about gender and sexual identity, race, class, and just about anyone deemed “other.” This year alone, 1,128 books have been challenged, according to the American Library Association, which documents ongoing censorship attempts across the nation. Florida is the state with the most banned books (3,135 bans, according to PEN America), and in the 2022–23 school year, there were book bans in 153 districts across 33 states, including Texas, Missouri, Utah, and Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, schools in Escambia County, Florida, removed 1,600 books on gender and race from school libraries and, through this process, even banned multiple dictionaries. In August, New College of Florida, a public liberal-arts college, disposed of hundreds of library books, emptying the school’s Gender and Diversity Center. Then, this fall, major publishers — including Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, and HarperCollins Publishers — filed a lawsuit against book-removal provisions in Florida (through HB 1069, a law introduced in 2023).

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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

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Everyone's still naming their kids Olivia and Liam. Theater kids, rejoice: Smash finally arrives on Broadway March 11. The Whitney is expanding free admission to all visitors 25 years old and under starting in December. Penélope Cruz photographed husband Javier Bardem for Gentlemen's Journal and well just see for yourself. And Trump is doing Joe Rogan's podcast, of course.

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