Illinois has become the first state to ban book bans.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Monday a first-of-its-kind bill that he says outlaws book bans from public schools and libraries, The Associated Press reported.
The bill, which would cut funding for any public library that bans books for “partisan or doctrinal” reasons, goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.
“Today, Illinois makes history as the first state in our nation to officially end book bans once and for all,” Pritzer wrote in a tweet Monday.
Pritzker signed the bill into law at a children’s library in Chicago where he stated that “book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts.”
“Regimes banned books, not democracies,” he continued, per CNN. “We refuse to let a vitriolic strain of White nationalism coursing through our country determine whose histories are told, not in Illinois.”
Book challenges have been on the rise across the country, with the American Library Association reporting that the amount of book challenges in 2022 nearly doubled that of the year before. The report shows that a majority of the books being challenged were written by or about LGBTQ+ people or people of color.
The ALA defines a book challenge as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”
The new Illinois law says that public libraries must adopt the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights or their own similar pledge in order to receive state funding, CNN reported.
The ALA’s Library Bill of Rights states that no material should be “excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.” or because of “partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who spearheaded the effort to pass the legislation, said he hopes other states follow Illinois’ lead to ban book bans.
“It’s my hope that others may look toward Illinois and see the value in adopting our legislation as a model to stop banning books in its tracks and to protect the right to read freely without fear of retribution,” Giannoulias stated on Twitter.