From Satanic Panic to Today’s Book Bans: How Moral Panics Target School Libraries

April marks National School Library Month. It’s increasingly important to honor school libraries as they continue to face book challenges from various political and parental groups, often with unclear requirements and strenuous objections to books that school librarians have already vetted as appropriate and recommended. (Learn more about book challenges at the EveryLibrary Institute Book Censorship Database.)

But it’s important to note that these book challenges, while gaining considerable media attention, are nothing new. They’ve occurred regularly in the past as part of a cycle known as a moral panic. National School Library Month is a good time to review the history of moral panics and see what lessons can be learned.

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Moral Panic: What It Is and Why It Happens

A moral panic is a situation in which several people within a society identify what they perceive to be threats to their social order or morals and react with exaggerated fear and/or anger. The people experiencing the moral panic are often encouraged by one another and find their concerns amplified in the media, even when evidence that no such threat exists is pointed out (or at least that the danger is significantly less than they believe). One famous example is the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692–93.

All it takes is for a few people to become concerned about something they’re convinced exists or happens and that they find threatening. Those people share their concerns, and the media may pick up on it (and today, social media is a major contributor in the spread of mis- and disinformation). To those who don’t believe in the fears, it can seem humorous, but often the results are anything but funny—just ask the people who were sentenced to death in Salem.

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School Libraries and Moral Panics

Unfortunately, a common tactic among people committed to moral panic is targeting sources of facts and information. That includes school libraries, and not just K–12 libraries; even college libraries, while facing fewer challenges overall, have seen an increase in book challenges.

1980s: Satanic Panic

Today, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is pretty mainstream and played by people of all ages. But only forty years ago, many accused the popular role-playing game (RPG) of being an instrument of the occult and possibly involved in Satan worship. It didn’t take long for that fear to spread to other forms of fantasy, including books. School libraries were under pressure to remove anything that fit those categories, regardless of the fact that many students loved them and used them to imagine fantasy worlds of their own (with no hint of Satan).

Today, shows like Netflix’s Stranger Things reference that era and its fears. During this same time, Tipper Gore, worried about violence depicted in movies and TV shows and scandalized by lyrics she heard on her daughter’s Purple Rain album, founded the Parents Music Resource Center and successfully lobbied to have warning labels about explicit content on some records. That started a national movement to shield children from what some considered bad influences.

1990s: Harry Potter

The Harry Potter books were immediately popular with students, but less so with adults who viewed the magic and witchcraft through the same lens that earlier generations used to view D&D. The fear that these games and books would introduce children to the occult became prevalent, and parents wanted those books out of school libraries.

Today: LGBTQ+ and BIPOC stories

Today, adults across the US want books by and about LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people off the shelves. They fear that white children will either be “turned gay,” face shame for how these groups of people have been treated in American history, or feel these stories violate their religious beliefs.

Once again, they turn to school libraries to try to take control of the literal narrative. Worse, they’re not just challenging books in the library, but trying to use local, state, and federal legislation to dictate what should and shouldn’t be accessible to students.

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A Long History

Unfortunately, throughout human history, moral panics have come and gone without people learning the lessons from them. The likelihood is that they will continue to occur. Today, these panics are deeply focused on school libraries, and the school librarians are the first line of defense against censorship.

How do they do that? In many ways.

• Professional Selection Policies. Librarians are trained to evaluate books on numerous aspects, from whether they’re age-appropriate to how engaging they are to students. Their education and hands-on experience give them a vast knowledge of their students, what they need, and what will be best for them. They understand that to promote literacy, students have to be interested in reading—whether for fun, to learn concepts or ideas, or to strengthen their critical thinking skills. Today, many school libraries set up collection policies that define the criteria they use and why they matter, which helps in times of book challenges.
• Supporting Students. Librarians support students by making sure they have a wide range of materials that appeal to different tastes and abilities. But they also want to ensure all students are represented in their holdings, whether they’re LGBTQ+, BIPOC, disabled, or anything else. They understand that children in those groups benefit from seeing themselves and that those not in those groups benefit from learning about them.
• Teaching Critical Thinking and Information Literacy. This is a significant approach to helping curb and possibly prevent large-scale moral panics in the future.
• Leadership. Librarians provide calm, grounded leadership when there’s conflict in their communities. They can use data and anecdotal evidence to prove that the fears are unfounded and that the book challenges cause more harm than good.

Interested in supporting school libraries facing issues with moral panics and book challenges? Reach out to your local school librarian and ask how you can help, learn how to stay informed about local book challenges, and sign EveryLibrary’s petitions for school libraries.

Visit www.everylibrary.org to learn more about our work on behalf of libraries. 

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