Hit 25 students in one semester for 'controversial' book citations

I'm a grad assistant in the English department at a state school in Ohio. Last week I counted how many times students got flagged by my department for citing books that were supposedly 'not appropriate for classroom use' - things like 'The Handmaid's Tale' or '1984'. The number hit 25 this semester which seems wild to me. Some professors back the ban and say we need to avoid triggering debates. Others think we should let students pick whatever they want. Has anyone else seen these citation numbers climb at their school?

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mason_lee1mo ago

Gonna have to disagree on this one. The whole point of college is to wrestle with uncomfortable ideas, not hide from them. Like, if a student can't handle "The Handmaid's Tale" in an English class, what are they even doing there lol. 1984 is basically a staple for talking about government overreach and truth, and banning it just makes the debates more heated honestly. If professors are actually triggering students just by assigning these books, maybe the problem is how they're teaching them, not the books themselves. Feels like a slippery slope to me.