Voters Do Not Support Banning Books from School Curriculums

By Leah Greenberg 

Amid a national surge in book bans at the hands of conservative-controlled school boards, Data for Progress polling finds that voters across the political spectrum do not support banning books from schools based on their content. 

The uptick in book bans have affected titles like Art Spiegelmann’s Maus, the graphic novel about the Holocaust, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. These bans particularly target books relating to race, LGBTQ+ identity, and sexuality, and appear to be the latest tool in an ongoing culture war being waged against curriculums across the country. 

But when polled, likely voters largely reject such actions. Seventy-one percent of likely voters – including 66 percent of Independents and 64 percent of Republicans – believe that local school boards should not have the authority to ban books from school curriculums.

This appears to be one of several fronts in the multi-faceted attack on schools and education in which a relatively small faction is driving the headlines, but is not representative of the broader public. We’ve seen comparable dynamics with school mask mandates, in which relatively smaller factions of anti-mask activists have taken aim at mask mandates that enjoy widespread parental support. 

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Leah Greenberg is a co-founder and co-executive director of the Indivisible Project. You can follow her on Twitter @Leahgreenb.