By Dreams of Hope
On January 24, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would no longer investigate schools that banned books from their libraries.
Most U.S. book banning today targets literature featuring characters of color or other marginalized identities, including and predominately LGBTQIA+ people and authors. During the 2023-2024 school year alone, PEN America recorded 10,046 instances of book bans. The pace and scope of these bans continue to expand, with thousands of titles being removed from schools across the country.
These censorial trends are bellwethers of the state of public education studied in after school. From itinerant classrooms to cooperative educational experiments, the exhibition and its collaborators put forth propositions for a school unbound.
The book suggestions and curated reading shelves organized in partnership with Dreams of Hope and featuring contributions from Amari Onyx and Erica Hughes celebrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and allied poets, authors, and thinkers. The selection of banned or challenged books responds to the restricted access to life-affirming literature for LGBTQIA+ youth in public education while recognizing the value of free and open access to information. Limiting that access has lasting consequences for how students understand their sexuality, their communities, and themselves. This resource is tailored to learners and educators as an act of freedom and celebration.
How can reading ignite our inherent brilliance?
