Exploring censorship through the lens of student protest and advocacy

By Etana Laing, library associate, Thurgood Marshall Library, Bowie State University

What are your concerns related to book bans and censorship in higher education and for librarianship? Why is academic freedom so important? What do you want your colleagues in higher ed to know and what can they do to help? 

When considering how to approach censorship and book bans in relation to higher education, my mind went first to feeling that it is a minor issue in comparison to the onslaught of attacks on public and K-12 libraries. As I sat in/with this assertion, I was suddenly struck by images of encampments, Black Lives Matter protests, sit-ins, and student strikes of the ’60s and ’70s. With public and school libraries at the forefront of current conversation around intellectual freedom, the role of universities in this fight became muddled in my mind.  

I begin by sharing my thought process as it serves as a useful grounding in how we, as academic librarians, find our footing in an increasingly restrictive intellectual country. I also think it is important to note that there is privilege in not immediately seeing universities as sites of attack (here, thinking about the cushion of living in a blue state). Holding space for these thoughts, I will now broach the questions: What are your concerns related to book bans and censorship in higher education and for librarianship? Why is academic freedom so important?  

Each concern around book bans and censorship can, and should be, flipped into a call to action.  

Etana Laing, library associate, Thurgood Marshall Library, Bowie State University

My initial blunder in failing to locate college campuses in the continuous struggle for intellectual freedom highlighted an opportunity to showcase the work of current and previous generations. The resistance efforts mentioned at the beginning of this blog post can and should serve as beacons of hope. To make plain the connection between intellectual freedom and the university, I offer a broadened idea of what banned book displays can include. While it is important to purchase and showcase challenged and banned books, space can also be made to include books and articles that speak to the history (and ongoing work) of advocacy and resistance. Doing so shifts the needle to a place of agency and is a reminder that there is a legacy of speaking truth in the face of censorship attempts.  

While I was wrong in failing to locate universities in the current book banning climate, it also highlighted that the fight has not reached us as intensely -- yet. This thought illuminated the possibilities in preparing for challenges if and when they come, or battening down the hatches, so to speak. Several ideas come to mind on how this can be done: connecting with local public libraries to gauge the severity of attacks on intellectual freedom in our areas, expanding retention policies to include books/e-resources containing targeted material, and purchasing banned or challenged materials (as budgets allow) to combat the chilling effects of censorship.  

My largest concern does not have an immediate flip to action. Instead, I raise it as a question for the reader…how will we resist the efforts to censor databases with journals that discuss intersections of LGBTQIA+ and Black and Brown folks? The nature of databases does not easily allow the individual deselection of materials and could lead to disastrous domino effects in what academic resources can be available to the campus. As we sit in a space of more protection than our colleagues in public/K-12 libraries, I propose that we collectively decide what that call to action can look like. 

About

Etana Laing is an MLIS student at the University of Maryland-College Park and an acquisitions library associate at Bowie State University. She hosts a book club for Black women, femmes, and people with lived experience of misogynoir called Revolutionary Reads. Her work is rooted in the belief that white supremacist hegemony must be actively named and resisted in all spaces she enters. The fight against censorship is one such avenue to carry out this task. 

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