- In the United States, libraries are caught between threats to their funding and a growing offensive against books deemed “inappropriate” by various fundamentalist groups.
- Behind the book removals, pressure is intensifying against librarians themselves, who are sometimes victims of harassment and intimidation.
- The “book war” has become a national political battle: the demands of religious groups and public officials are supplanting individual protests, while censorship, previously concentrated on school libraries, is also gaining ground in public libraries.
In the United States, the situation of libraries is deteriorating. Numerous threats weigh on their autonomy and their funding. A few months after the arrival of the Trump 2 administration, we reported on the plan to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) , an agency that participates in the funding of many programs offered by the countless places that make up the very rich network of American school libraries and public libraries for an annual amount approaching 300 million dollars.
Thanks to the mobilization of elected officials, associations, and citizens, the outright dissolution of the IMLS is no longer on the table. But while the agency itself is no longer threatened and its staff have been reinstated, the administration has renewed its attempts to drastically reduce its operating budget through the FY2027 budget bill submitted to Congress for approval.
A continuity resolution (CR) was passed to maintain funding at the previous year’s level until December 11th. After that date, the future remains uncertain.
Fundamentalism attacks libraries
Through its decisions and positions, the Trump administration implicitly legitimizes the increasingly uninhibited arrogance of fundamentalist pressure groups that attack libraries by targeting the collections offered, certain works in particular, but also the cultural programming offered there.
Thus, in the summer of 2026, Republican representatives introduced a bill against which the American Library Association (ALA) is mobilizing . Called the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act , the bill is introduced as follows:
“Amend the Primary and Secondary Education Act 1965 to prohibit the use of funds allocated under that Act for the development, implementation, facilitation, organization, or promotion of any program or activity aimed at children under the age of 18, or for the provision or promotion of works or other materials containing sexually explicit content, and for other purposes.”
This text is specifically aimed at school libraries, which are veritable institutions in the United States. Systematically present and far better stocked than in most primary schools in France, they are usually managed by university-trained professionals.
Amanda Jones is an example whose portrait was drawn in the documentary USA: The Book Wars , by Ilan Ziv, broadcast on Arte in 2024, and then more recently in another documentary, by Kim Snyder, released in 2025 in the United States, The Librarians .
Accused of promoting pornographic content to children who frequented the Livingston, Louisiana, parish library she managed (because she had not removed LGBTQIA+ themed books from the shelves), she firmly denied these accusations at a school board meeting. She then faced months of threats, harassment, and intimidation, even in her own backyard. This modus operandi is reminiscent of the practices of some extremist activists in the pro-life, anti-abortion movement who relentlessly pursue their victims, doctors or patients, even in their homes.
Since then, Amanda Jones has become a symbol for these professionals (often women) who refuse to give in to intimidation of rare violence. These attacks, triggered simply by their desire to guarantee a diverse range of collections, sometimes even go so far as to question their personal morality. Amanda Jones explained in an interview published in 2023, even before Donald Trump’s return to the White House:
“In my state of Louisiana, there is currently a wave of censorship targeting books written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community, under the pretext of ‘protecting children from pornography.’ The censors will claim that this isn’t the case, but the lists of books they deem objectionable prove otherwise, and this phenomenon is being observed all over the United States. They use fear tactics, harmful rhetoric, and social media to create hysteria around books. Once they have everyone riled up, they start talking about defunding libraries.”
Expansion of the scope of censorship
In many states, lobbying groups—including the powerful , Republican-leaning Moms for Liberty , which relentlessly works to control the books available to young people—are becoming increasingly aggressive. While school libraries have long been their preferred hunting ground, under the guise of protecting youth, the ALA has reported that, by 2025, 51% of book censorship attempts had taken place in public (non-school) libraries.
The recent report by the association for the defense of freedom of expression and writers, Pen America, with the explicit title “Out of Circulation”: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries, takes stock of this progressive generalization of intimidation and demands for the removal of books or cultural activities from all libraries, including those intended for the general public.
He distinguishes three forms of censorship: the old one, which targets books; administrative or political censorship, which weighs on the budgets and governance of these institutions; and finally, a third, which directly, or even physically, threatens the professionals in charge of these libraries.
The battle becomes political
The number of censored books has been breaking records in recent years. It has gone from 3,362 censored books in 2023 – these are books that are asked to be removed from library shelves because of their allegedly inappropriate content for children; they include both A Clockwork Orange , by Anthony Burgess, and the children’s book Gender Queer , by Maia Kobabe – to 6,870 in 2025.
To inform the general public and mobilize as many people as possible, professionals have established a week dedicated to these issues across the country. This is Banned Book Week , which brings together all professionals at the beginning of October.
Another striking development documented in the ALA (State of America’s Libraries, 2026) report is the changing status of those demanding censorship. By 2025, almost all (92%) of the recorded censorship attempts were initiated by lobby groups, government officials, and policymakers, whereas in the past, they were primarily individual initiatives by parents. This shift underscores a polarization of the debate at a now national and institutional level: challenging books is no longer a one-off parental initiative but a tool for political mobilization.
Actions are also diversifying, as highlighted in the Pen America report: these include the removal of themed displays (around events like Pride Month or Black History Month), the cancellation of events and story times (notably Drag Story Hour, which has been targeted by bomb threats in several cities), the reclassification of children’s books to adult shelves, and the unauthorized placement of warning stickers directly on books.
As a British official said during the serious crisis that the public library network in the United Kingdom went through from the 2010s onwards, under the Conservative government of David Cameron:
“Libraries are like a canary in a coal mine, a true detector of what is happening more broadly in local communities.”
It is in this increasingly threatening context, which now extends far beyond school libraries, that the resistance of American librarians has just been recognized with an Emmy Award for the documentary *The Librarians *. These issues of free access to all content, whatever its nature, will certainly be at the heart of local debates as the midterm elections approach, as illustrated by the proposal of the Texas lieutenant governor, running for reelection, to penalize schools that do not remove certain books from their libraries. But we can be sure that, here again, the powerful library community will rise up to raise the alarm and mobilize against censorship!
Author Bio: Cécile Touitou is Head of the Foresight Mission at the Library / DBA at Sciences Po
