Recent report shows that more than 1,500 books have been banned in over 5,000 schools during the last school year

According to a new survey, more than 1,600 books were prohibited in over 5,000 schools during the previous school year, with the majority of bans targeting titles relating to the LGBTQ community or race and racism.

Monday, the first day of Banned Works Week, PEN America, a non-profit organization advocating for free expression in literature, released a study detailing the scale of efforts to ban certain books during the 2021-22 school year.

It was determined that there were 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 titles, implying that the same titles were targeted many times in various districts and states.

The survey revealed that books were banned in 5,049 schools with a total enrolment of over 4 million students in 32 states.

Due to PEN America’s adherence to recorded examples of bans, which included reports to the organization from parents and school staff members as well as news stories on book bans, its data likely undercounts the true number of bans, according to the report.