State school board set to release policy on book complaints before school year

Members of the Utah State Board of Education are struggling to reach consensus on a model policy on how schools should resolve complaints about books in school libraries and classrooms. Parents and conservative activists are targeting books which contain LGBTQ characters or themes and those centered on race relations.

After months of work and a two-hour debate late June, leaders have yet to find middle ground on the spike in complaints against books with “sensitive topics.”

Book challenges in America aren’t new — but over the past year, they’ve reached a fever pitch. A majority of the books that have been targeted nationwide focus on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, and racism.

The situation is “unprecedented in its scale, and in the proliferation of organized groups who are trying to remove whole lists of books at once in multiple school districts, across a growing number of states,” says Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, an advocacy group.

According to an April report from PEN America, there were 1,586 instances of individual books being banned during the nine-month period from July 1, 2021, to March 31, affecting 1,145 book titles.

Utah had 11 bans in two districts, according to the report. In Canyons School District, nine library books removed last year went back on the shelves in January, following an investigation into their removals launched by ACLU of Utah.

UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE The Utah Attorney General’s office, and Sean Reyes himself, released guidance for the school board relating to the constitutionality of banning books from schools.

“The United States Supreme Court has an extremely long history of recognizing that students have their own First Amendment rights in school. The removal of books from a school library can constitute an official suppression of ideas, in violation of the First Amendment. In Tinker v. Des Moines, SCOTUS held that ‘School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are ‘persons’ under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect.’ The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.” Ashley Biehl, Assistant Attorney General, wrote in the memorandum.

State law delineates “harmful to minors” as “nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse” but only when it “as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors,” “is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors,” and “taken as a whole, does not have serious value for minors.”

“Books may not be removed because they contain ideas that local school boards disagree with based upon: politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion,” the memorandum states.