As the Trump Administration Sets the Stage for Anti-Intellectualism, This Author Is Fighting Back

“We’ve seen them go after teachers and artists and librarians. We’ve seen them jailed—and why? Because an ignorant populace is easier to control. And we will not be that ignorant populace.”

After speaking at an English teachers’ conference, New York Times bestselling author and former English teacher Samira Ahmed was asked by one of the attendees, “How can I be brave?”

The question highlights a growing fear for many teachers across the U.S. ensuring their students have access to diverse titles in the classroom. Last school year, over 10,000 book bans were issued, targeting 4,240 titles—more than double the number of bans in the previous year, according to PEN America research. The incoming Trump administration’s Department of Education has already made fighting the bans increasingly difficult, dismissing 11 complaints against school districts for removing books calling the bans a “hoax.”

The teacher Ahmed talked to taught in a small, virtually all-white district. She had hoped to bring Ahmed’s Internment—a book taking place in a future U.S. about a 17-year-old girl forced into an internment camp for Muslim Americans—to the classroom, but two other teachers in the department objected. They argued that because there were no Muslim students at the school, the book shouldn’t be read. 

“Well, you don’t teach hobbits and I’m sure that you have The Lord of the Rings in your library,” replied Ahmed.

What [book banners] are doing is saying that the existence of those kids is somehow an affront to America. Instead, we should be saying to all of these kids, ‘All of your stories are welcome on our shelves.’ Our shelves should reflect our world.

Samira Ahmed

Still, without union protections for teachers in her state that would have allowed her support to plead her case, the teacher stood down and the book wasn’t read by her students that year. 

Another teacher at a conference shared that she too had struggled to bring Internment to her students after learning that a staff member refused to put in the purchase order for the books. Ahmed calls this “soft banning”—when access to a book is restricted outside of a district’s process to actually ban something. 

Also operating without union protections, the teacher gently inquired about the book throughout the year. The staff person continued to refuse, according to the teacher. Eventually they said, “I don’t know, I guess I’m just prejudiced.”

The teacher eventually acquired the books… a year later. 

After hearing about these experiences, Ahmed started getting more involved, speaking about book bans online and at a school board meeting in Michigan that was trying to pull her books, Internment and Hollow Fires, from the shelves. 

“When book banners say, ‘This book about a queer kid or a trans kid or young Black or brown kid or disabled kid or a Muslim or a Jewish kid, these stories should not be on our shelves because they are a danger to our children, because they are pornography, because they are obscene,’ what they’re doing is saying that the existence of those kids is somehow an affront to America. Instead, we should be saying to all of these kids, ‘All of your stories are welcome on our shelves.’ Our shelves should reflect our world,” Ahmed tells Ms. 

Ahmed noted that books about the existence of the Holocaust are being banned. In 2023, a teacher in Texas was fired for teaching the graphic novel version of The Diary of Anne Frank. “We saw a picture book recently about colonialism on the American continent re-shelved from nonfiction to fiction,” she says. 

But, Ahmed reminds Ms., there are successful ways of fighting back against censorship. For those living in a district with a school board or library board, Ahmed encourages people to show up and speak against bans.  “Call your school board and library board members. Act locally as much as possible. Support your library. Get a library card.”

She also encourages young people to get involved politically—whether that means pre-registering to vote, voting or running for elected office themselves. “I tell students everywhere, if you’re currently 17, but you’re going to be 18 by the next election, you can register to vote now. Voting locally is so important because those school boards and library boards, those positions are won by literally a handful of votes,” says Ahmed.

In October 2024, a school board in Florida voted against banning nine books that were challenged on its library’s shelves. Last year, school board candidates in Florida backed by Gov. Ron Desantis (R) were defeated in major swing counties in the state. 

“I really also encourage people to write and call their state senator, their state legislator, their city council, their mayors, because a lot of this legislation that we’re seeing enacted that is in support of book bans is happening at state levels, like in Florida,” Ahmed says. “We see it in Texas, but we can fight back, and we have successfully fought back.”

Despite their growing presence, 69 percent of Americans oppose state lawmakers passing book bans and 79 percent support teaching the history of slavery, racism and segregation in public schools. “We know that reading books and hearing stories builds empathy. As a former high school teacher, I cannot stress how important that is.”

Ahmed’s most recent novel, This Book Won’t Burn, specifically addresses book bans. “It’s very important for young people to realize that their rights do not end at the schoolhouse door,” she tells Ms. “This actually comes from a decision by the Supreme Court, and in This Book Won’t Burn this group of kids is like, ‘Wait, our freedoms are being attacked. You’re trying to take their voices away. We’re not going to let you silence us.’”

We’ve seen [authoritarian and fascist regimes] go after teachers and artists and librarians. We’ve seen them jailed—and why? Because an ignorant populace is easier to control. And we will not be that ignorant populace.”

Book bans began to pick up steam about three years ago in tandem with right-wing attacks on critical race theory, a legal framework that Ahmed guarantees “is not taught in kindergarten.” But the attacks themselves go beyond the classroom, fitting into the larger authoritarian playbook. Book bans are often an early sign of authoritarianism: In 1933 Nazi Germany’s book burning campaigns targeted the writings of Helen Keller, who advocated for disabled people, improved working conditions and women’s voting rights. 

In his first month in office, President Trump has already set the stage for an anti-intellectual atmosphere. Throughout his campaign he called to dismantle the Department of Education and has now posed Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive who does not have a background in education, to run the agency.

McMahon has indicated that she wishes to hold unprecedented oversight over what is taught in public schools. When answering a question from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) about whether or not Trump’s executive order prohibiting DEI programs would effect classes like African-American history she said, “I’m not quite certain, and I’d like to look into it further and get back to you on that.”

She has also called for expanding school choice programs and vowed to cut federal funds from schools that do not follow Trump’s executive order against transgender athletes. 

“It’s very important for people to realize that we have seen this before, all through histories and deeply authoritarian and fascist regimes. We’ve seen them go after teachers and artists and librarians. We’ve seen them jailed—and why? Because an ignorant populace is easier to control. And we will not be that ignorant populace,” says Ahmed.