From Oct. 5 to 11, the College of William and Mary’s chapter of Amnesty International, in conjunction with Earl Gregg Swem Library, commemorated Banned Books Week. According to Amnesty International, this recognition aims to highlight cases across the world that demonstrate human rights violations as a consequence of limiting the written or spoken word.
One of this year’s featured case studies examined the crackdown on freedom of expression and the revocation of student visas on U.S. college campuses as retaliation for peaceful protests or published work. The College’s chapter of Amnesty International attempted to bring attention to the American situation through a week of campus advocacy efforts, like passing out informational pamphlets to students in the Sadler Center.
Bronwen Kubiak ’27, a double major in government and Chinese culture and language, serves as the group coordinator for the College’s chapter of Amnesty International. She remarked that the response from the campus community was largely positive, noting many students feeling unsure about what comes next in terms of federal policy towards free expression on campuses.
“I would say the general response from the student body, from what I’ve seen, has been pretty positive, because I know that in this current climate that we’re in, a lot of people are feeling afraid, a lot of people are feeling unsure of what is coming next,” Kubiak said. “Which is why it’s really important for us to be visible in this moment, to let the broader community know that we are willing to stand up and fight for our rights on this campus and that this movement does exist at William and Mary.”
Kubiak further remarked that, although the nation is less than a year into President Donald Trump’s term, it feels as though widespread campus censorship is causing the country to regress — a trend that is evident in the U.S.’s rare inclusion on Amnesty’s list.
“The fact that the government, and this is just more of my personal opinion at this point, but the fact that the government is in a position right now where it is not — we’re basically regressing faster than we’ve made progress, that is the scary thing,” Kubiak said. “And that we’re not even a year into the current administration, and we are regressing much faster than we can possibly kind of defend at this point.”
While Amnesty International’s campus outreach tends to focus on free speech censorship, Banned Books Week also allows students the opportunity to reflect on censorship in general that occurs across American classrooms. An infographic created by the American Library Association noted that 2,452 unique titles were challenged in 2024, the third-highest ever recorded. Further, top challenged titles include “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” “Gender Queer,” “The Bluest Eye” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” — all of which largely deal with issues of sexuality and race.
While many politicians and advocates for banning books argue they wish to protect people, namely children, from being exposed to sensitive topics, Eira Johnson ’26 remarked that censorship tends to do more harm than good.
“I’m a history major, and what I tend to see is any time information is covered, it’s not with good intention,” Johnson said. “It’s not, it’s never about protecting people. No matter how many times people say that, it’s never about protecting them.”
Remi Naranjo shared a similar sentiment after attending the event. He feels that even books where the message is inherently hateful, like in Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” should still be accessible to readers so they can learn from them, not to endorse the ideas, but to understand how such ideologies take root and recognize the dangers they pose.
“I feel like while we think that Hitler’s Mein Kampf has bad arguments, I’m glad that he wrote it because we can argue those bad arguments, we can show why it’s a bad book,” he said.
Associate Teaching Professor and Director of Strategic Initiatives Alexandra Joosse shared her passion for bringing more eyes to literature that has received censorship for political reasons. She reflected that banning books goes against the nature of human social life.
“Generally speaking, I don’t think we as a society will be any better for suppressing voices, shutting down voices, and that’s what banning books does,” Joosse said. “We’re picking topics, and we are saying we don’t want that topic written about or we don’t want people to read about that. And that is not how we are built as humans.”
CORRECTION (10/23/2025): Article was updated by the Standards & Practices Editor to correct attribution of 2024 challenged books infographic.
