Advisor(s)

Teaira McMurtry

Committee Member(s)

Amy Dagley
Christopher Minnix
Josephine Prado
Scott Snyder

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

6-18-2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

School of Education

Department

Education

Abstract

Between 2021 and 2025, PEN America documented over 22,000 book bans across the United States (US). Yet, with only 451 districts banning out of over 13,000, 97% of US school districts are not engaging in banning. The 451 banning districts represent only 3% of US school districts. While most research examines individual stakeholders, such as librarians and teachers, this study focused on district and community data which do not change as fast as microsystem variables. Since banning occurs at the district level, understanding school district demographics and values may help situate the sociopolitical context of school board decisions to ban or not to ban. Book banning is at the intersection of two concepts: parental rights and democratic education. Navigating the book ban controversy rests in balancing the liberty of parents—established in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925)—to challenge potentially troublesome content in books with the First Amendment standards set by Island v. Pico (1982). This dissertation includes three articles. Article 1 is a literature review of the book ban phenomenon, highlighting legal precedents, policy developments, and scholarly discourse. Article 2 is empirical research using statistical analyses, including logistic regression, to discriminate districts that ban from districts that do not ban. Article 2 provides descriptive analysis of the nation and a more in-depth look at states and districts. Article 3 is a geospatial visualization of the variables used in the empirical research: school district size, political affiliation, educational attainment, socioeconomic status, racial demographics, and cumulative book bans with special attention given to the top banning districts from the eight-state sample used in Article 2. The layers are displayed in a Media Map, fully accessible to the public. Additionally, an Esri Map App has been designed to display each of the four years of banning simultaneously across the US, with the book titles and authors banned in each district in a pop-up box. This interactive map provides insight into district banning behavior and has great potential for further research. Though the articles will use still images, the original layered map is interactive and available to the public on ArcGIS online.

Keywords

censorship;district book bans;first amendment;geospatial visualization;logistic regression;school library

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