Daniel Zhao

Within days of the presidential inauguration, the Trump administration declared Biden’s book ban “hoax” was officially over after the U.S. Department of Education dismissed 11 civil rights complaints over book bans in public schools.

The DOE said it will no longer investigate book bans, effectively transferring censorship in libraries from the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights to local school districts. Censorship in public schools will now go unchecked at the federal level.

But in Connecticut, library experts and lawmakers are working to protect libraries from excessive book bans. Scott Jazormbek, president of the Connecticut Library Association, said the organization had been preparing for upheaval with the new administration. If censorship is not questioned at a federal level, “that is what it is, but we can make it so that it happens at state level,” Jazormbek said.

Two days before the Trump administration’s announcement, Connecticut state legislators introduced the “Don’t Ban Library Books Bill”, a measure that aims to prevent censorship in Connecticut public libraries and protect librarians from legal backlash. The bill would prohibit public and school libraries from removing books because of “its origin, background or views of the material or of its authors, or solely because a person finds such books offensive.”

This bill, which is still on the floor, would also require school and library boards to develop policies for collection curation and removal.

New Haven’s City Librarian Maria Bernhey supported the bill via written testimony. 

“Removing items from a library because someone believes another person’s child should not read them imposes a singular perspective and undermines the core library principle of providing free and open access to information for all,” she wrote.

But in the Elm City, at least, the bill would perhaps have little impact on its public library system. The city’s libraries already have a removal policy in place, NHFPL Public Services Administrator Rory Martorana said. The Ives branch of the New Haven Free Public Library has not received any requests to ban books or other materials that librarian Alexandria Robison can recall.

If the library ever did receive a request to ban a book, NHFPL would adhere to its Collection Development Policy. The Collection Development Policy dictates that the library “not exclude materials solely because of the race, nationality, political, gender, sexuality, or social views of the author.”

Robison explained that NHFPL updates its Collection Development Policy every three years, most recently early this year.

For Jarzombek, the policy goes a long way to protect librarians. When complaints and reconsideration requests are directed at librarians without the buffer a policy provides, “librarians get maligned like you wouldn’t believe,” Jazormbek told the News. Librarians sometimes fear threats on their jobs from parents or school boards, or retribution for statements they make about book bans, he added.

“We want to protect our professionals, the people who are experts and have dedicated their lives to literacy and working with youth,” he explained.

Jazormbek noticed an increase in complaints about books in 2024, but since more libraries have instituted Collection Development Policies, there have been far fewer complaints in Connecticut, even as elsewhere in the nation, book bans are on the rise.

Not only do Collection Development policies protect librarians, but they also provide a clear process for parents to “have a voice about what’s in their children’s library,” Jazormbek said.

There have not been efforts to ban particular books in New Haven Public Schools either, according to a NHPS spokesperson. Under Connecticut State Board of Education policy, librarians are to select materials in accordance with the American Library Association’s School Library Bill of Rights.

Martorana wrote in an email that NHFPL also always adheres to American Library Association guidelines and “industry standards, while also considering literary trends,” so that their “collection remains diverse and meets the needs of [the] community.”

“The Library is committed to protecting everyone’s ‘Freedom to Read,’ and ensuring readers have access to information to form their own opinions,” Martorana wrote, referring to the Connecticut Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Statement Against Censorship.

The nonprofit PEN America counted over 10,000 book bans during the 2023-2024 school year, approximately double the number counted between 2021 and 2023.