The summer is heating up, and Utah gets ready to implement a new statewide book-banning system. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that effective July 1 — ironically three days before the nation celebrates its freedom — a new law originally sponsored by Rep. Ken Ivory and Sen. Todd Weiler takes effect where books will begin to be removed based on “objective sensitive material” as defined by Utah code. There were literal discussions by the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) whether to conduct book burnings.
The bill is HB29: Sensitive Material Review Amendments, and it specifically calls out Utah Criminal Code Title 76, Chapter 10 Part 12 to define what objective sensitive material may be. The code uses terms like “contemporary community standards,” “prevailing standards in the adult community,” and “serious value”. The code is hyper-focused on expressions of sexuality and nudity.
It doesn’t mention physical violence, gore, or abuse. It doesn’t mention persecution, genocide, mass murders. It doesn’t mention drug abuse or recreational drug use. Apparently those depictions don’t constitute objective sensitive material according to the prevailing standards in (our) adult community. Here in Utah, sex is bad, bad stuff.
The law does not take into account that sexuality is identity. It doesn’t take into account, or possibly disregards that for minors a book may be the closest experience to reading about and understanding who they are. It does not factor that its “contemporary community standards” upheld are the religious dogmas of a church, and not broadly representative of religious views, culture and identity in our community. It’s unusual that the titles are works by renowned authors like Toni Morrison, Judy Blume and Margaret Atwood. These authors are now mobilizing as Authors against Book Bans – follow them on Instagram.
Article reference: New Coalition Against Book Bans Launches Nationwide With Support From Authors Like Judy Blume and Julia Quinn (People Magazine)
Our public school systems already have a system in place to monitor what’s appropriate to place on a library shelf. We have librarians who are trained, professional staff with degrees, accreditations, professional associations and administrative support to determine what students are reading, and what’s appropriate (or not) to place on a library shelf.
Stay tuned for the Utah State Board of Education to post its list of banned books on their site after the law goes into effect. July 15 Update: Links to each LEA are now published by the USBE.
In the meantime, if you want to do something for your community consider fighting censorship and starting a Little Library of Banned Books. If there is interest, I’d be happy to sponsor a workshop to build little libraries for our House District.
Are you interested? Let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.