PRSSA unfolds reasons for book bans in public spaces

By Grace Bertrand 

STUDENTS gathered in a crowded room on the third floor of the Franklin F. Moore Library on Feb. 26 to educate themselves on books that have been banned or challenged by public schools, universities and libraries. 

Alongside the university library, the Public Relations Student Society of America organized a trivia night to teach students and faculty about the vitality of the fight against censorship. 

“By banning books, you’re limiting access to different stories, experiences and different ways of life,” said PRSSA Vice President Delaney Misier, a senior communications major. 

The PRSSA hosted the event in an effort to bring awareness to their Bateman campaign for EveryLibrary, a non-partisan, pro-library organization dedicated to ensuring stable funding and access to libraries nationwide. 

 In an effort to expand EveryLibrary’s target audience, which is typically middle-aged women, PRSSA chose to start their campaign at Rider, where they have a greater reach of students. 

Approximately 15 students were in attendance at the event, fulfilling their goal. 

“I think change starts at a younger age and so by instilling these ideas into college students, I have hope that we will make a better future,” said Misier. 

Some of the questions asked throughout the night consisted of similar statistics about book bans in certain states and the topics on which books were challenged. 

A question that was a crowd favorite was about why the Goosebumps series had been banned or challenged: violence, witchcraft, gambling and crude language.  

In the 2023-24 school year, there were 10,046 instances of book bans recorded, according to PEN America, a nonprofit organization that raises awareness on the protection of free expression in the U.S.  

The trivia night honed in on other similar statistics to people in attendance through a variety of questions in a Kahoot!-style trivia game. 

Misier explained that hosting a trivia night was much more “engaging” from a younger perspective than if they had done a traditional lecture.  

Sophomore communications major Jenna Munswami, the winner of the trivia night, agreed with the sentiment that the interactiveness helped her learn more about book bans than other events. 

“I like that we have people advocating for book bans on campus and raising awareness about it,” said Munswami. “It’s crazy to me that in our day and age, any book can be censored just because people in higher power do not agree with its ideals.” 

To further expand the target audience for their campaign to end censorship across schools and libraries, PRSSA explained their commitment to encouraging students to take their passion against book bans to voting ballots. 

“EveryLibrary does a lot to support elections for libraries,” said PRSSA Secretary Shawn Rippy, a senior political science major. “Hopefully, if we get more younger people involved informed, we can get them a little more active in voting.” 

Misier acknowledged that while New Jersey itself is safe for now because of its own anti book ban legislation, the Freedom to Read Act, there is always a risk of censorship.  

“Every new election comes with a new person that could strip away some of those protections that some of these other states thought they had too,” said Misier. “To get involved, people need to definitely reach out to lawmakers, peacefully participate in protests and talk with younger students.”

To close out the list of 25 questions, PRSSA posed a hard-hitting final question that they felt accurately represented the current state of censorship in the U.S.: “In 2023, there were 938 attempts to censor books. How many attempts were there in 2014?” The answer to the question is 235 attempts. 

PRSSA explained that their hope is for the number of attempts to go back down in the future. 

The first step for them is making sure students are educated on the different statistics on book bans so they can properly take initiative.   

“I feel like one of the coolest things about our country is how much freedom that we have to express ourselves and our views,” said Rippy. “If more and more of our freedoms start getting stripped away and the people that are higher up feel comfortable stripping those freedoms away, who knows what other freedoms they are going to try to take?”