Utah became the first state to ban books from all of its public schools and currently has 13 banned titles, including works by popular author Judy Blume and recently popular author Sarah J. Maas.
A new state law that went into effect July 1 requires officials to remove these books from shelves in all public schools if they are found to contain “objectively sensitive material,” including depictions of sexual activity. The Salt Lake Tribune reported..
The law would mean that if at least three of the state’s 41 public school districts (or two school districts and five charter schools) ban a book within their jurisdictions, the book would be banned statewide.
All but one of the newly banned books were written by women. According to a list released by the Utah State Board of Education: Friday.
The index includes the complete series of popular fantasy romance series A Court of Thorns and Roses by Maas, Eternity by Bloom, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, and Milk and Honey by poet Rupi Kaur.
The books remaining on the list are “What Girls Are Made Of” by Elana K. Arnold, “Tilt” and “Fallout” by Ellen Hopkins, and “Blankets” by Craig Thompson.
Book bans in schools are increasingly common in conservative areas and Republican states, but have been heavily criticized as censorship and an infringement of residents’ civil liberties.
“This is a dark day for reading freedom in Utah,” said Casey Meehan, reading freedom program director at PEN America.
“A state reading ban list would impose a dystopian regime of censorship across public schools, often in direct opposition to local preferences.”
According to the law, once banned books are removed from a school they “may be lawfully disposed of and may not be sold or distributed,” but Meehan said the law was dangerously vague.
“To make matters worse, the implementation guidelines are vague and will undoubtedly result in books that readers could enjoy being stuffed into the bin,” she said in a statement.
“While the final guidelines stop short of calling for the burning of books, the effect is the same: a signal that some books are so dangerous that the state has the power to ban them.”
More titles will be added to the list as the new school term begins.
