The ramifications of Project 2025’s looming book bans

Since its initial publication in early 2023, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has been looming over the heads of millions of Americans like a dark cloud. Although Donald Trump has technically disavowed the mission, now over two months since his second inauguration, that storm has broken. Goal after goal is being enacted by the Trump administration, leaving those millions of Americans who were dreading the storm to get soaked.

One chilling proposal of Project 2025 involves making the expansion of book banning efforts a federal priority. Book bans have existed in the United States for years, but for the most part, they have remained on the local level. Such bans usually revolve around books which depict historical oppression like slavery, racism or white supremacy as well as queerness and gender issues. Therefore, it can be deduced that these book-banning efforts are likely motivated by a desire among conservatives to censor literature that celebrates marginalized identities or brings attention to historical oppression. Although conservatives usually frame book bans around the idea of shielding children from inappropriate subjects, the fact that those subjects almost always have to do with marginalized identities or oppression is telling. This is wrong on many levels.

First of all, preventing books that feature stories of historical oppression from being circulated in schools will prevent children from learning about extremely important topics. The United States is built on a history of brutality, a fact which must never be forgotten. Although we have arguably come a long way, the United States is by no means a utopia. Systemic oppression still runs very deep in the institutions that our country operates on, and only by tracing the origins of that oppression will we be able to dismantle them. Banning books that depict that history directly perpetuates the same oppressive institutions that the books are trying to fight, and only by knowing the horrors of history can we prevent the past from repeating itself. Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders, so it is absolutely imperative that they are educated on the history that has preceded their lives.

All children deserve to see themselves reflected in literature. In fact, such a thing can be instrumental to a child’s development and coming into their identity as an individual. At the very least, I know that this was the case for myself. Simply put, I would not be the person I am today without the books I read as I was growing up, and I would not have had access to many of those books without my school libraries. I have memories of reading passages in middle grade novels that validated experiences I had been having that made me feel totally alone. Those books helped me realize that I was not, and allowed me to pursue my own journey of self-discovery with much more confidence. Since the majority of book bans center around issues linked to marginalized groups, children who are part of those groups deserve to see themselves in literature the way I did when I was younger. Increased bans would prevent such children from having that opportunity, a denial which is completely unfair and cruel.

On a more individual level, banning books that feature marginalized characters will discourage children from learning about identities (whether racial, gender or sexual) that may differ from their own, especially since book bans are more prevalent in conservative states where such exposure might be less likely to come about without problematic biases. Rather, children will be influenced by the views of the adults around them, which, in areas where books like “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” are banned due to depictions of racism or “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “This Book is Gay” due to LGBTQ+ content, are far more likely to exacerbate the very sentiments that many such books are attempting to combat. Children must be given the opportunity to form their own opinions about the world around them, and they should be allowed to do so without censorship. It is no coincidence that more concentrated, diverse urban areas tend to lean more liberal than spread-out rural areas. If the access to books that can aid them in doing so is denied on a large scale, children will be left far more vulnerable to the influence of harmful rhetoric about marginalized groups and the motivation for change in younger generations will fade. This is exactly what the conservatives behind Project 2025 want.

Art is a celebration of human creativity, and creativity is derived from the human experience. Authors are artists who aspire to take that experience and turn it into a thing of beauty and make their living off of that practice, and they deserve the chance to do that. If, however, book bans become more widespread on a federal level, authors will suffer greatly. As modern society is increasingly altered by technological advancements, creative jobs overall have been coming under more and more scrutiny in terms of being considered viable careers. In the face of this, it is imperative that we fight every threat to creative art that arises, because a society without art is a possibility that I and millions of Americans never want to see.

George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” has been banned in various countries over the years, due to its depiction of totalitarianism as a cautionary tale. The irony of this should be unspoken, for banning books at all is not dissimilar to harshly oppressive totalitarian governments that restrict freedom of expression from their people. Although the novel is not banned on a large scale in the United States as of this moment, it does not seem far-fetched to suggest that such a movement could be coming under the presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, the story holds more weight in America now than it ever has before, for our country appears to be headed down an eerily similar path if things do not change.