This is Banned Books Week, the annual public awareness event spearheaded by the American Library Association and other organizations that promote the virtues of our freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The ALA has long maintained that intellectual freedom – the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular – is at the bedrock of American democracy.
Yet no year goes by without numerous attempts to ban books from public libraries or from our schools – elementary to college.