Austin, Texas — Texas Leads Record 12,000 US School Book Bans

Public schools across the United States banned nearly 12,000 books during the 2025-2026 school year, the highest single-year total the free-expression nonprofit PEN America has recorded since it began tracking the practice in 2021, according to a report released Monday. The organization said the figure brings the cumulative tally of school book bans to roughly 34,000 instances over five years.

How many books were banned this school year?

PEN America's 2025-2026 count includes a "record number of unique titles" — more than 7,000 — pulled from shelves, involving more than 4,000 authors, illustrators and translators, the Guardian reported. Analysts also identified 114 school districts that removed at least one book during the year, which PEN described as the highest number of participating districts ever recorded for a single year.

Why did Texas pass Florida as the top state for bans?

Texas recorded more than 8,100 book bans in 2025-2026, by far the largest state total and enough to make it the national leader for the first time in PEN America's tracking. Florida had held the top spot for the three previous school years. PEN America attributed the jump in Texas to SB13, a state law the report says "bars extensive categories of books in schools." The Guardian's account does not detail Florida's specific 2025-2026 total, so a direct comparison beyond the ranking itself is not available in the source material.

Which books and authors were targeted most often?

The single most frequently banned title nationwide was "Sold," a young adult novel by journalist Patricia McCormick about a teenager from Nepal trafficked into sexual servitude. McCormick, quoted in the Guardian's report, said: "Mostly I feel angry on behalf of the women that I interviewed for the story: young women who've been sold into sexual slavery, who told their stories so the world could know what was going on."

Stephen King was named the most banned author for the second consecutive year, PEN America found, though the report as summarized does not specify which of King's titles drew the most removals or how many districts pulled his work.

What role did AI tools play in the surge?

PEN America said the increase stemmed from two forces working together: newly enacted state censorship laws, including Texas's SB13, and the use of artificial intelligence tools by districts and vendors to screen library catalogs. The organization said AI screening has helped remove an "expansive number of titles" at once, a scale of review that would be difficult to replicate through book-by-book committee reviews alone. The Guardian's account does not specify which AI tools or vendors are involved, or whether individual districts have disclosed their screening criteria.

The mechanics of automated content screening are not unique to publishing. Separate reporting on workplace AI adoption has examined how automated systems reshape judgment calls once made by people — a dynamic explored in HTT News coverage of AI in the workplace, though that report addresses corporate settings rather than school libraries.

What to watch

• Whether other states introduce or expand laws similar to Texas's SB13 ahead of the 2026-2027 school year.
• Whether Florida, the prior three-year leader, releases its own district-level totals for comparison with Texas's count.
• How many of the 114 districts that banned books in 2025-2026 face legal challenges from authors, publishers or free-speech groups.
• Whether school systems disclose which AI screening tools they use and what criteria those tools apply to flag titles.
• Whether PEN America's cumulative five-year total, now near 34,000 instances, continues to accelerate when the organization issues its next annual report.

PEN America's full methodology, including how it defines a "ban" and verifies district-level removals, was not detailed in the material reviewed for this report. Readers seeking the underlying data should consult PEN America's own published findings alongside the Guardian's account of the report's release.

Artiglio is A coming-soon iPhone chief of staff for briefings and drafts. Not on the App Store yet.