This kind of thing happens commonly with language development over time. If a word or phrase picks up a strong connotation, then the word or phrase stops being used generically. This used to happen so slowly that nobody really noticed it happening to individual words or phrases, I think.
As an example, starting a fire could be called “firing”. If you say you’re going to “fire the stove”, that isn’t typically said, but everyone would know what you meant. If you call your friend group a “squad”, again, this isn’t typically said, but everyone would know what you meant.
If your friend group goes camping and works together to light a fire, you could say that you’re part of a “firing squad”. But, that already has such a strong connotation that it would be confusing and you would have to constantly explain what you actually mean because “firing squad” as a phrase is already taken.
That is of course a synthetic example but I think it illustrates the point. When we say “banned books”, that has a certain connotation. If what we mean is more like “curated books”, because they aren’t actually banned for sale anywhere, even at the local level, then saying “banned books” is confusing in the same way and it carries an undue emotional charge from the typical usage of that phrase.
If that undue emotional charge seems to be getting weaponized, then using it and acting innocent about it is going to ruffle some feathers.
They are banned though. Not curated. You are not allowed to have these in school libraries. It’s not an editorial decision. For instance the Utah law says that a book must be removed from all libraries if 3 school districts in the state ban it.
No librarian, or teacher, or admin or parent in the other school districts gets any say.
That’s a ban. People may not like that their state is engaging in authoritarian behavior, and it’s less authoritarian than other behaviors, but it’s a ban by the simple facts. Doublespeak doesn’t change that.
I have seen lots of discussions about headlines along the lines of “<state or local government> bans <book X>”. Or just referring to book X as “a banned book in <state or local jurisdiction>”. This has the problem I described, and this is where I see arguments happening that don’t really make sense to me. It isn’t doublespeak to say what I said about this.
If what we’re talking about is actually the more detailed headline “<state or local government> bans <book x> FROM SCHOOL LIBRARIES”, or “book X which is banned FROM SCHOOL LIBRARIES in <state or local jurisdiction>” then that is accurate and fine. I haven’t seen anyone complaining about this, have you?
We can’t pretend the two are the same thing, they aren’t the same thing.
Would you prefer forbidden? Barred? Censored?