The district’s list of removed school library books is circulating in Tennessee

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A Tennessee school district’s list of nearly 400 books removed from library shelves, including titles by authors ranging from Dr. Seuss to Toni Morrison, is being used by other school systems as a possible template to follow.

Wilson County Schools administrators ordered the district’s librarians to collect the books a month ago. This week, leaders of Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools sent their librarians the same list to consider when assessing their collections.

A third major suburban school system, Rutherford County Schools, this week ordered its librarians to remove about 150 titles — 51 of which overlap with the list in neighboring Wilson County.

The removal there came at the request of school board member Frances Rosales, who told Chalkbeat she used the Wilson County list and reviews on the website. Book appearance as a basis for her request.

The purges fall under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 “age-appropriate” school library law, which lawmakers drafted. expanded this year to ban public school libraries from having books containing “nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual arousal, sexual content, excessive violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

Sponsors of the changes, which came amid national “culture wars” fueled in part by pro-censorship websites, say their goal is to protect students from obscene content and give families more control over their children’s education children.

But the changes have also created a climate of fear, confusion and self-censorship for school leaders and librarians, causing some to rethink or ignore their own assessment processes. preventively removing titles from the shelves.

The victims include graphic novels and books with LGBTQ+ topics for middle schoolers, as well as classics like Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” about a young African American girl who longs for blue eyes, and popular picture books for children like David Shannon’s No, David’. !” and Seuss’ “Wacky Wednesday.”

“This law is intended to catalyze the book ban,” said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program. “We should not be surprised to see the mass removal of books in response to this censorship legislation.”

Tennessee’s law likely faces a constitutional challenge

The one from Tennessee original law from 2022championed by the governor, required districts to publish the list of materials in their library collections and periodically review them to ensure they are “appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students accessing the materials .” Each community had to define what is considered age appropriate based on local standards.

This spring’s revisions in the Legislature added a definition of what is “appropriate” — including altercations about sexual content, nudity and violence that could be interpreted to include literary classics like “Romeo and Juliet,” historical novels like “All Quiet on the Western’. Front”, and encyclopedias with photographs of nudes.

The law is expected to be challenged in court due to its vague wording, lack of state compliance guidelines and the uneven way the law is applied across Tennessee.

Among the groups tracking its implementation are the ACLU of Tennessee and some publishing companies.

In Florida in August, several major publishing companies have sued state education officials about a 2023 state law banning sexual content in school libraries. They argued that the law had caused a wave of book takedowns in violation of the First Amendment.

A questionnaire A survey conducted this fall found that members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians had revoked more than 1,100 titles during the first few months of the academic year under the revised statewide law.

“I removed 300 books in the first month of school,” one librarian told the organization anonymously.

Since the survey, the number of titles distributed across Tennessee has skyrocketed “from a trickle to a flood,” said Lindsey Kimery, a Nashville school library supervisor and one of the group’s leaders.

“If Wilson County’s list is shared widely, and county leaders see it as a cheat sheet so they don’t have to do their own reviews, it will create an unofficial list of book bans for the entire state,” Kimery said.

A spokesperson for the Clarksville-Montgomery district, which serves about 38,000 students near the Kentucky border, emphasized that Wilson County’s selection was used “as a resource, not a mandate” for its own librarians.

“We are not directing you to immediately remove all of these titles from your library collection,” curriculum leaders told principals last week, according to talking points from the meetings the district shared with Chalkbeat.

“However, we provide this list as an example of books that have already been vetted by Tennessee educators and strongly encourage you and your library media specialists to review and consider the list if you have these titles in your collections, or if this material conflicts is with state law. .”

Books that are in violation must be removed, the clients were told.

In Rutherford County, where 150 books were removed this week, the school board voted Thursday evening to give librarians time to review the titles and come back with a formal recommendation on whether they should be permanently removed or returned to the shelves placed.

“I don’t believe we intentionally have pornography in our schools, but I do believe that books with questionable content have seeped in,” said Rosales, who told Chalkbeat she had “put a lot of thought and research” into her request for removal 150 titles.

However, she added that “our librarians are experts, and we need to give them time to review these books and give us a report.”

Other school systems that conduct library assessments reported that Wilson County’s list does not take into account their work.

A spokesperson for Knox County Schools said the East Tennessee district is working with its librarians and legal team to identify books for possible removal and will provide schools with a list in the coming weeks.

Below you can view the list of books removed by Wilson County Schools.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent covering the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at [email protected].