The Bill
Earlier this year, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed the sensitive material bill into law, which seeks to create a threshold for banning books in the state.
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A book title can be banned if at least three school districts or two districts plus five individual charter schools deem the book to have “objective sensitive material,” otherwise known as pornographic or “indecent” content.
Objective Sensitive Material
The bill, HB29, seeks to create a clear distinction between objective sensitive material and subjective sensitive material.
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A book deemed to have “subjective” sensitive material would undergo a committee review process before being banned. Books with “objective” material skip the committee review and are immediately banned by the school district.
The Banned Books So Far
Librarians were outraged at the titles being banned from school libraries. According to them, some sensitive material can be age-appropriate for teens and pre-teens.
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Five books in the series “Court of Thorns and Roses” were banned as well as several other titles from Mass. Also, Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake, Craig’s “Tilt,” Hopkin’s “Fallout,” Blume’s “Forever,” Kaur’s “Milk and Honey,” and Arnold’s “What Girls Are Made Of.”
Are Women Being Targeted?
A clear pattern has emerged from the books that are being banned; most of the authors, excluding Craig, are women, and the books deal with issues of girlhood and coming-of-age sexuality.
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Judy Blume, a beloved author and pre-teen girl, often writes about young love, relationships, and the strain of crushes and friendships for young women and girls. As well, Poet Rupi Kaur is well known for discussing romance, loss, violence, and abuse through a feminist perspective.
Residents Are Unhappy With the Ban
Many parents and residents in the state were concerned about big government overreach.
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“We are very concerned that authors such as Judy Blume and Margaret Atwood are being classified as pornography in Utah,” wrote the Utah Library Association on X. “HB29 is an unconstitutional overreach.”
The Material Being Targeted
The bill used legal jargon to outline what “objectively sensitive materials” could cover. However, the specifics of the topics are still vaguely outlined.
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Based on the books that have been banned, it’s clear that the “sensitive materials” are anything that covers sexuality, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and racism.
What Kids Should Be Reading
While there is a good argument to keep kids away from explicit sexual material at a young age, sexuality, gender, and race is not something that kids can be shielded from their entire lives.
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At a certain point, age-appropriate material about relationships and attraction can be read.
The American Library Association Is Upset
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, noted that the new bill in Utah is nothing short of a “tragedy.”
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She also stated that many of the banned books are famous for their honest depictions of relationships and their relatability for pre-teen readers. She stated, “None of them come anywhere near to meeting the definition of illegal materials and, arguably, they have a place on the shelf for voluntary reading for students for whom they’re developmentally appropriate.”
Librarians Should Use Their Discretion
Before book ban laws came into effect, librarians would use the SLAP method to decide which books were appropriate for kids.
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The method is used to decide if books have “serious, literary, artistic, political or scientific merit.” Although some topics can make sure readers uncomfortable, topics like assault and sexuality can be supportive and relatable to others.
Republicans Claim to Protect Children
Ken Ivory, Utah’s state representative, says the bill aims to create more “uniformity” across the state regarding the number of books allowed in school libraries.
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Ivory has been a long advocate for removing “pornographic” books from schools alongside parent activists. He claims to want to protect children from sexually explicit material.
Controlling Information
Criticisms of the bill claim that the new law creates unchecked power by the Republican government to control the information that kids have access to in public institutions.
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Caldwell-Stone said: “It really is an effort to allow a minority to dictate the contents of library shelves, and conform what’s on library shelves to their own political, religious and moral values.”