New Wave Censorship (And What Literary Justice Really Is)

By Brian Li '27, Winston Churchill High School As the nation continues to be embroiled in new waves of turmoil and disparity, fueled by a federal government using increasingly escalatory methods to gain control, one seemingly small aim of the new administration has gone quietly before the eyes of many Americans. In the wake of national pandemonium, a decade-long goal has at last been achieved for many regressives - the procedural dismantling of literary justice frameworks. 

Within the last few years, threats to activism through writing have long been a prevalent issue, specifically in the form of book banning. Most prominent in schools and public libraries, conservative groups have long sought to remove writing deemed as problematic - most often, books covering race, gender, and criticism of government actions. Now, however, come to fruition through a recent legal victory, it demonstrates a particularly telling example of the true severity of such intent. 

Literary censorship was previously limited to state-level issues, and applied in much fewer cases. But following the new presidential ascendancy in January, national panic surrounding some of the far more publicized crises has allowed some of it to pass in a much quieter, much greater fashion - demonstrated well by the recent Supreme Court case of Mahmoud V. Taylor. In a turn of events not met by much public resistance, a conservative majority allowed parents to block their children’s access to all LGBTQ reading materials on a federal level. 

Compared to larger current issues, it may seem to some that a few books are not much of a matter of concern - much less significant when compared to looming uncertainties such as the immediate stability of democracy. Such matters have not yet, perhaps, escalated into an Orwellian regime of nightmarish totality. But contrary to appearances, it’s arguable that they are - as not only a single indicator of greater matters, but a warning on a much more fundamental scale - the complete deconstruction of the civic freedom to exercise personal power. 

The concept of literary justice has always been a force not just limited to the field of writing itself. Writers seeking to bring about change have been responsible for vast historical shifts. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist work Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a now historically ingrained example of fiction being used to give attention to a prominent societal issue, was read by nearly a million Americans in 1862, and aided in calling to attention the brutality in slavery so much that a newly elected Abraham Lincoln would, according to many sources, tell Stowe that she was “the little lady that started this great war.” In the Gilded Age, when working-class Americans and immigrants labored for the meatpacking industry in dangerous and inhumane conditions, the journalist Upton Sinclair’s work The Jungle brought the matter before the eyes of Theodore Roosevelt, who managed to, as a direct result, implement sweeping national reforms. 

A definite reason exists as to why activism through literature is uniquely impactful. Logistically, while most other forms of creating systematic change involve either sums of resources or large groups willing to devote themselves to lobbying efforts, literary justice requires neither. Individuals are given the capability to voice their own concerns and opinions, with fewer limitations in the financial and social aspects. Outreach is arguably easier than localized events, as messaging delivered in literary form can be far more easily accessed, with a degree of complexity that is inherent to writing. And as many readers are easily invested in their own current circumstances, authors seeking to create relevant change can be quickly picked up by large audiences, giving them platforms otherwise difficult to attain. Both Stowe and Sinclair were simply civilians, and so are contemporary equivalents such as Bryan Stevenson, a working-class-raised lawyer whose year-spanning research into the racial disparities of the incarceration system allowed his memoir Just Mercy to rise to national prominence. Such cases persist through history, and for good reason. Literary justice is not just a form of messaging, but an act of giving power to those who may otherwise never attain it through systematic means. 

Knowing the ability granted to activism by literary means, attempts to restrict access to information become much more of a fundamentally dangerous notion. Just as the importance of literary justice cannot be understated, so must the threat of targeting writers as inherently offensive be acknowledged. By banning and removing books deemed as sensitive, an attack is made on the foundations of our own ability to create change, the suppression of an integral form of civic power. Opposition to literary justice is not just an opposition to ideas alone, but one to our very own wills and choices. 

In the wake of such a dramatic shift, choices are more important than ever. The ability to act in one’s own judgment is the most axiomatic path to any hope of future betterment, and writing, as history has proven, remains an ever-reliable way of exercising it. Will literary justice and its irreplaceable value continue to be upheld in ever-testing times or will this time leave us with no way out? As with any other writer in the vast landscape of action, the answer truly only lies with you.