S3, E8: Book Bans and Intellectual Freedom w/ Dr. Emily Knox

In this episode, Dr. Emily Knox, a professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, explores the intersection of intellectual freedom, freedom of expression, and social justice, as well as power, neutrality, and the rise in book challenges and bans in the United States.

Hosts: Ericka Brunson-Rochette and Gene Iparraguirre
Record Date: October 9, 2024*
*Please note episode was recorded prior to the 2024 election

Mentioned in this episode:
'The creed of a librarian: no politics, no religion, no morals' by D.J. Foskett
ALA Library Bill of Rights
Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse 2024 Report
Book Riot article on Krause's 850 "Banned Books"

Transcript

(Intro Music Playing)

Gene Iparraguirre: 
Hello and welcome to Overdue Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, a podcast produced by the Oregon Library Association's Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Committee. I am Gene Iparraguirre from the Coos Bay Public Library.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:
And I am Ericka Brunson-Rochette, she/her pronouns, a librarian living and working in Oregon. Today, we are honored to be joined in conversation by Dr. Emily Knox. Emily Knox is a professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include information, access and intellectual freedom in censorship. She's a member of the Mapping Information Access Research Team. Her most recent book, Foundations of Intellectual Freedom, won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom. Her previous book, Book Banning in 21st Century America, is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars Series.

She has been interviewed by media outlets such as NPR and the New York Times, and also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Book Banning. Knox is a Chair of the Board of the National Coalition against Censorship and the Editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. She received her Ph.D. from the doctoral program at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information. We are so delighted to welcome you on the podcast today, Emily.

Dr. Emily Knox:               
Thank you for inviting me.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:
Yes, well, thank you for joining us. We are so excited for this conversation. We're going to get our questions kicked off with an icebreaker, and that is, what book had the most significant impact on you as a child? And maybe what book had the most significant impact on you as an adult? So either/or an and situation, whatever you'd like to share with us.

Dr. Emily Knox:               
 So the book that had the most impact on me as a child is Tamora Pierce's Alanna books. I clearly remember being eight years old at the library and seeing that book on the top of the shelves and I can see myself reaching for it and thinking, I think I'm going to really like this book. And I did. I still love fantasy. I still love Tamora Pierce. I read or listen to those books, her entire total series, usually about once every two years. It really helped me understand how much I love books and reading, and I am forever grateful to that librarian for putting that book on top of the shelf.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:

 That's wonderful. I know those books are really popular. I am going to have to take some time and go back and read through that series myself.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
So can you define what intellectual freedom means to you and can you share what led you to do this work?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Yeah. So intellectual freedom, when I think about it, it's about not being restricted to the full world of information. So it's really about, am I able to find the information I need, the information I want, and how do I feel when I'm looking for that information? So to me it is a right that is inherent in each person. You have the right to intellectual freedom. You have the right to freedom of expression. I got interested in this because my mom was a high school librarian and we would observe Banned Nooks Week every year. She'd bring me home, the lists, the bookmarks, the pens, and I would notice that one of my favorite authors, Judy Blume, was on that list. And as I made my way through my education, I knew that what I wanted to study was why do people ban books? What is the point of this and why do they get upset about books that I love? And that's what I ended up doing for my doctoral work.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
That's really cool that it's something that you've grown up with the intellectual freedom and the book banning and understanding, assuming at a very young age, the impact that has long-term. So that's really cool.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:
Yeah, absolutely. I always find it so fascinating that some of those books that were really celebrated or heralded when at least I was younger are some of the ones that I see showing up on some of these banned lists now. So I definitely share that curiosity. I mean, a lot of it, I know why it's happening, but some of them it is still just a head-scratcher for me. But it feeds really well into our next question here, which is, the State Library of Oregon, which is where Gene and I are joining you from, recently released their annual Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse Report, which reports on intellectual freedom challenges at libraries and education institutes in our state.

Aside from the 2024 report showing the highest number of challenges reported since the state began collecting data, this year showed that 87% of the items challenged stories about by or centering individuals who belong to an underrepresented protected class under Oregon law. Is this a common theme that's happening in material challenges across the nation, and if so, why do you think that is?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Yes. So almost all of the books that show up on various lists are what we call diverse books, and I want to define what I mean by a diverse book. So this is from Emile Lawrence who is an assistant professor at Rutgers. "A diverse book actually has a political point of view." So not just any book that has diverse characters would be considered diverse books. What we actually see for these books is that they have some idea about understanding people's lives. What he talks about in his research is a Sheikh Romance is not a diverse book. It doesn't have this political point of view. So we have seen over the past few years that almost all of the books that show up on these lists are diverse books, and in fact, they are targeted because they are diverse books.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
It's always interesting to hear the fact that books are only being targeted because they're diverse. I forget that's a thing that upsets people for some reason, which I can't wrap my mind around it because it always feels like it's a better thing to have more diversity in anything. Be it books, music or foods, or literally anything that's happening in the world, having more diversity always helps other things grow. So the fact that diverse books are a targeted thing, it just always frazzles my mind.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:
It seems like it's something that should definitely be sought after. We want that. Diversity makes us all better. It enriches all of our lives and experiences and perspectives.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
I can actually address that a little bit, if you'd like.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:
Oh yeah, we would absolutely love that.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Oftentimes diversity can actually be quite frightening to people. So what I talk about in my research is that if you think about something like white flight, what you had people do is as cities became more diverse, they actually left. White people would leave the city. You actually think that you are leaving and going to a place that is more homogenous when you do that. And so if you think about white flight as being a way of getting away from diversity, you actually can see that, in fact, many of the challenges that we see don't happen in cities that are multicultural diverse. We see them happening in suburbs and exurbs, because those places themselves are becoming more diverse.

Also, if you think about something like books about LGBTQIA people, this is not possible to escape. You can't white flight your way out of LGBTQIA people. And so if you think about it that way, that it's actually a response, a reactionary response to a social phenomenon, you can see that this is actually much more based in fear of a changing world.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:
That makes a lot of sense, and it's still hard to reckon with, and I think of just the history here in Oregon because Oregon was established as a white flight state, a white sanctuary state for folks to get away from Black and Brown people, so it's not surprising to see those linear ties with those books that are being challenged here. But knowing that this is a nationwide thing that is happening, it makes me question what actions, what things are in place for us to help fight back against that and to show the beauty of diversity and how we all can benefit from it.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
So one of the main things for libraries to do is to make sure that they have updated policies in place to make sure that their collections are representative of many different points of view. I would also say that you won't always convince people that diversity is beautiful. So I would not necessarily take that as the point of view, as the best way to address this. You sometimes have to realize that there are people who will never agree with that. That doesn't mean that they're right or correct, but the job is to present lots of different points of view and including ones that do talk about how we can build a more just society. So I often don't actually worry about changing people's minds. Instead, what I try to get them to understand is that the library is there for everyone and I'm sure there will be something on the shelf that will satisfy your reading needs.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
Yeah. Well, talking about reading needs, you also have in your book from 2022, Foundations of Intellectual Freedom, you discussed several topics including exploring the intersection of intellectual freedom, freedom of expression, and social justice. Would you mind discussing that a little bit more for our listeners?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Sure. So the way I think about it is that you can't actually have social justice without intellectual freedom. At some point you have to be introduced to these ideas about what it means to have a just society, and it's almost inevitable that when people are engaging in censorship practices that they will be working against a just society. It's no mistake that the books that we are seeing being targeted right now are about having a more just society. So to me, this is an important part of intellectual freedom. You must be able to talk about social justice from an informed point of view, you also need to be able to read opposite viewpoints with people who might disagree with ideas about what makes a just society, and that is impossible without intellectual freedom. So that's really how I think about it overall.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:            
Thank you for sharing that. And you also authored an article entitled Embodiment, Endorsement, and Policy: Considerations for Intellectual Freedom in the Library where you discuss how intellectual freedom and that social justice aspect are intertwined with developing library collections, services, and policies. Will you talk a little bit more about this and how it affects library services?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Yeah. So what that article is really about is thinking about, what does it mean for a library to have a collection? And one of the issues that we're running into right now is that people somehow think that if a library has something in their collection, they endorse that thing. That is not an accurate understanding of how collections work. Collections are based on the mission of the institution, and policies for collection development are developed usually by committees, approved by boards, and the library does not necessarily endorse everything that would be on the shelf. I also talk a little bit about things like displays, and this actually adds a layer onto endorsement. I encourage libraries to actually have lots of different things on display. Sometimes it's nice to do them when they're completely viewpoint neutral. So you say, "These are books with red covers," and you show that. You want to hit a lot of different parts of your collection as you're thinking about what you are displaying.

 Also, the policy is what is the embodiment of the mission of the library. So it's not necessarily the individual item. Where you see that the library is dedicated to information access, providing services is through those policies. Those policies are then enacted in various different ways, but it doesn't necessarily mean that because someone is using a meeting room, for example, that the library endorses what is being said on that meeting room. Because the library has a Facebook page and people are posting it, it doesn't necessarily mean that the library is endorsing everything that people are saying. So I was trying to get really at, how do we understand how other people, outsiders understand the processes and policies of a library and why this gets so confused in people's minds by using these concepts of embodiment and endorsement.

Gene Iparraguirre:          
I've been aware that it's people using the rooms doesn't mean we're endorsing the rooms or the space that they're using, but I never thought about also the collection aspect and also the display aspect of it as well fully than I'd grasped previously. So it's nice. In your opinion, how can libraries balance the principles of intellectual freedom and social justice, especially in today's political climate?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
This is really about understanding your own community and the mission of the library. So how a library balances these aspects really has to do with, who are your patrons and also how are you addressing the needs of everyone in your community? So it's very possible that you live in a community where, for example, people might be upset that a pro-Palestinian group meets in your library because they might consider them to be an anti-Semitic group. I'm just putting that out there as a way of understanding how politics is working right now. But your job as a librarian is to provide a space for people to meet. You are not endorsing necessarily what they say. You are a, what we use is the term, limited public forum, viewpoint neutral place for people to meet even if the things that they are meeting about are controversial in some way.

 So to me, what you do as a library and as a library worker is really thinking about the code of ethics, of holding the freedom to read, the freedom to view statements, the library Bill of Rights, and make sure you're addressing the needs of everybody in the community as best you can. If you do that, you often will have diverse viewpoints, you will have collections that are representative of people that you might not hear from very much. I recently was at a summit and people were talking about the literature of undocumented immigrants, which is something I just had not thought about before. And if I am working in a library, I would want to think, does my library have works by and about undocumented immigrants?

I often challenge people to think about what works in translation does your library have? And it doesn't necessarily have to be serious. I'm a big fan of the Japanese mysteries which have become popular recently. Those are works in translation. Are you collecting those? If you think about it more holistically about what do we mean by being diverse and representative, it can actually relieve some of the tension that people feel between intellectual freedom and social justice.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:                           
Yes. Thank you for sharing that. And to speak more on that question and the one that came before that, I'm curious if you feel like there's any overlap in the service provision with things like displays or how we approach that non-endorsement attitude. Do you feel like that overlaps at all in how we provide services and programs and outreach efforts in libraries?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Yeah. So I would encourage libraries to be very thoughtful and careful about their displays. So are you displaying things like, for example, your Amish romances, which are extremely popular? I mentioned that I like fantasy and there are all different types of fantasy. I just worked on a article with my advisee on clean books, and in fact one of the biggest fantasy authors in the world is Brandon Sanderson, who always has clean books. So I guess what I would say is, think broadly. How many different people are you representing in your work? If you're doing something on, for example, the election, I just looked at my ballot and there were, I don't know, 15 names of people running for President. I had never heard of most of these people, but do you have different works by them? And you're just saying, "All of these people are running for president. You might have never heard of them, but here is the book that they put out so they can run for President."

Are you inviting the League of Women Voters to do a non-partisan sponsored debate of all of the different people running for elections in your community? To me, this is really what I'm talking about, about thinking holistically and broadly about intellectual freedom and social justice. You need to think about, rather than left/right, which is what often people are liberal, conservative, progressive, are you showing multiple points of view with people who might not be on the spectrum as we think about it, which I think is often really hampered by our two-party system and how we put people basically on sides using colors? When in fact the full spectrum of people is across many different ideologies and understandings of the world.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:                           

For sure. Yeah, I love that. So like if you were putting a display up, you gave the example of red books, but so many different types of books and genres and themes can have red covers, but when approaching programs, maybe finding those commonalities between people, like the type of program that people would come to, but approaching it from all the different avenues that you could get to that commonality. I'm going to shift gears a little bit here with our next question, and I'm curious to see how this intersects with the idea of being non-endorsement spaces. Can you speak more about your concept of librarianship never being neutral?

Dr. Emily Knox:               
Yeah. So this is an ongoing, oddly enough discussion in librarianship. Although, if you look at official documents that come out of the American Library Association and related organizations, they never talk about libraries being neutral. This is actually from Foskett, whose name unfortunately I can't remember his first name, but he wrote a treatise for Killip (?) in the U.K. talking, actually, it was about reference services as being neutral and it's much more about, how do you approach someone when you are doing a reference interview? But somehow this came to be an understanding that libraries are neutral. Libraries are not, in fact, neutral. Libraries have very clear missions. The support for intellectual freedom is a clear mission of librarianship. The support for social responsibilities and social justice, for sustainability, these are all things that libraries stand for and they are not neutral on them.

As you can see by the various fights that we've had across the country, libraries stand for your freedom of expression and your right to intellectual freedom, and that is not a neutral stance. People might think, well, these come into conflict with each other, but to me, if you keep your mission in mind and what you are there to do as you are working in a library, you realize that you aren't being neutral when it comes to your interactions with your patrons, providing the best services you possibly can based on your budget, being thoughtful and careful when it comes to developing and carrying out your policies. All of these things are things that libraries do and they aren't neutral on them.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
I had always heard that libraries had to be fully neutral, so learning the fact that, that information primarily went to reference stuff is really eye-opening for me, that libraries don't have to be a very neutral space as it is about the intellectual freedom and making sure that it gets pushed out.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
So let me say a little bit where some of this might've come from also. There is a term called viewpoint neutrality, which is related to the legal understanding of the public library as a limited public forum, and this is where in your policies you wouldn't say things like, "We decide who gets to use our library based on their values," or something like that. So a library would be viewpoint neutral with regard to that. What I'm really talking about are the ethics of librarians and library workers and how you live out the policies that you develop.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
California is also one of the latest handful of states to pass an anti-book ban act within the last two years. Is there any sense of optimism for you or what work still needs to be done to see this stance taken a little bit further nationwide?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Yeah, optimism. I'm very concerned about the upcoming election. Please vote. I don't know what the reaction will be on the ground given where we are as a society, and I might be optimistic overall, but these are such local issues. Even if the number of challenges goes down nationally, if a challenge is happening in your town, that doesn't matter because it is happening in your town, your workers are being called groomers, people are yelling at the board meeting. So it doesn't actually matter what is happening overall. I wrote my book banning book in 2015, and I have this long list of challenges that have happened in various places all over the country, and there's true fallout when these happen. Neighbors don't speak to each other anymore. You learn a lot more about people than you ever wanted to know.

So I am optimistic, but I am very worried about what we call red states in particular, Florida and Texas. Idaho is also not doing so great, Utah. These are states where people are being restricted access to information. That is just the truth of the matter right now, and the only way I can see that changing is if the people of those states decide that they want different state government. And that takes organization, that takes people coming out and voting. That makes people realizing that I might say that I know what's best to read for other people, but I don't want people saying that for me. So in fact, I am going to stand up for fear of expression and intellectual freedom. It really takes a movement to make those changes overall.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:                           
Yeah, absolutely. And I know that lots of folks in those red states, well, in all states, there are going to be people on the other side of that viewpoint that feel maybe a little bit helpless and are struggling for some tips on advocacy. We know many librarians are learning on the job how to advocate for their libraries to legislative bodies from school boards all the way to representatives and senators. This is a fact of librarianship that doesn't feel adequately covered in library and information school programs. Having tested before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, what are some tips that you can give librarians for advocating to legislative bodies?

Dr. Emily Knox:                
So I think the main thing is to really be prepared, by the time you are in front of a legislative body, you need to know who your supporters are. You need to make sure that you have your elevator pitch, your longer pitch, and your slightly longer pitch. So think about, what is the most important message that you want to get across? You also have to tailor your pitch for different audiences. What you say to one legislator might not work for the other ones. So you try to find out, what is of interest to them? I'll just tell you what I did when I did that testifying for the Judiciary Committee. It turned out that I had a connection of some sort with various members. So I am from Maryland, my family is from South Carolina, and I went to Rutgers and I'm from Illinois.

 So senators from some of those states that I named were on that committee and I mentioned that when I started my testimony. I did that on purpose so that they would know that I have a connection to their home states. I also mentioned that I worked at Kirkland and Ellis, which is a law firm that is actually known as Kenneth Star's law firm. It's a very conservative law firm and most of those lawyers who were on the committee would've heard of it before. So if you think about that, that's one way to think about how, that's a nitty-gritty for doing advocacy. In general, you need to be organized before something happens. You need to know who your supporters are. You need to know that your policies are in good shape. You need to educate your board and the city council on what intellectual freedom is, what the library does.

If you're a library director, you need to be at all those city council meetings. You need to get involved with things like, I've been using Rotary, as an example, right now, but a lot of times we don't think of business people as being supporters of the library, but thinking about the information needs that they have and how a library might meet them can be very important, especially if you need money in the future to be able to renovate the library. To me, the work is really ongoing when you think about advocacy. It's not a one and done thing. It's something that you had to continually think about when you were thinking about the needs of your institution.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
All really great stuff. I like the part of trying to make connections with people. As you're trying to talk to them, discuss stuff with them that you were naming or letting the legislators know where you were from and all the stuff you had done creates a nice little common ground setting that makes it easier to be able to digest information from the person versus just opposing views and just people closing off automatically. That's a lot of great little information. Are there any other last nuggets of wisdom for libraries and our educators who are struggling with intellectual freedom challenges or any advice to inspire hope or courage when things are feeling a bit heavy?

Dr. Emily Knox:               
A couple of things. Please take care of your mental health. This is a very difficult time. I'm sure many of us feel anxious about the election. Also, if something is happening in your institution, make sure you have support and the mental health support that you need so you can get through this. I encourage everyone to read banned books. It seems so obvious, but there are lists like the Krause List of 850 banned books. I'm sure there's something on there that you might be interested in. And we're all familiar with the top level banned books, but I'm thinking about the Midwest authors who might not be added to collections right now. So the people that you haven't heard from as much, and in fact they really rely on libraries to buy their books and maybe there are some libraries who aren't able to do so for now. And also, organize. Make sure you know who your supporters are in your community, consider running for your local boards, and also, please vote.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:                           
Great. Thank you for that, Emily. Thank you for this whole conversation. I feel like, especially those actionable items, those reminders to make connections, to look for commonalities amongst people who think like you, but also, and really importantly, people who don't think like you, finding those common grounds and educating yourself and being prepared by having folks in your corner and looking for those support people who can really help. I also really, really love the idea of having this myriad of elevator pitches, have these different scale of pitches and be prepared to pull them out and use them as tools to help support your argument, to help get some buy-in from other people. That's such a helpful tip.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
I'm glad to hear it, and I just try to remind people that social justice is about relationships.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:            
Thank you for the work that you do.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Oh, sure. You're welcome.

Ericka Brunson-Rochette:                           
We need folks that are involved, that are knowledgeable, that are continuously learning and educating others. There's just so much value in that. All of this to say, this has just been an incredible conversation and we are so thankful that you provided your time and your perspective and education to all of us and to our listeners. So thank you again, Emily.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Okay. You're welcome.

Gene Iparraguirre:         
Yeah, it's been fantastic. General, as a whole, this whole conversation has been eye-opening, a little bit heartfelt, and also, yeah, you're right, we've got to take care of our mental health also while we're doing all of this. Having different pitches of different lengths, being ready to discuss heavy topics with people also takes a toll on us while we're doing it. So that was a great little reminder.

Dr. Emily Knox:                
Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Gene Iparraguirre:           
Yeah, it was lovely having you here. Thank you so much.

(Voiceover)
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon. 

Este proyecto ha sido posible en parte por el Instituto de Servicios de Museos y Bibliotecas a través de la Ley de Servicios de Biblioteca y Tecnológia (LSTA), administrada por la Biblioteca Estado de Oregón.

(Voiceover)
We would like to take time to acknowledge historical injustices. We recognize Oregon was established as a white sanctuary state with the intent to exclude African American and Black people on ancestral lands stolen from dispossessed indigenous peoples. We recognize and honor the members of federally recognized tribes and unrecognized tribes of Oregon. We honor Native American ancestors, past, present, and future whose land we still occupy.

This acknowledgement aims to deconstruct false histories, correct the historical record and disrupt genocidal practices by refocusing attention to the original people of the land we inhabit the slave trade and forced labor that built this country, and to the oppressive social systems interwoven into the fabric of our national and regional heritage. We ask that you take a moment to acknowledge and reflect as well.

(Outro Music Playing)