COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) – The first books that could be pulled from school library shelves across South Carolina, including classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Romeo and Juliet” will soon be before the State Board of Education.
A state education committee met for the first time Thursday to consider whether nearly a dozen books should be allowed to remain in classrooms and on the shelves of school libraries or should be banned from every school in the state.
This is the first time state education leaders are weighing the fates of books under a controversial new rule that went into effect this summer. It requires school books and learning materials to be age- and developmentally appropriate, specifically those depicting sexual conduct.
The regulation allows the State Board of Education to have the final say in local disputes over which materials are appropriate and set a statewide policy with its rulings.
What makes Thursday’s hearing a little different is that these books came forward from the Department of Education, not from a parent in a local district.
“The chairman of this committee requested that staff help identify materials that were either raised to the board’s attention during public comment or materials that were frequently challenged at the local level prior to the implementation of this regulation,” South Carolina Department of Education Policy and Legal Advisor Robert Cathcart said.
“This is a well-intentioned action by the Instructional Material Review Committee,” Patrick Kelly, the director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association said.
But Kelly noted the regulation requires the person challenging the book to start by having a conversation about it with the school, something that didn’t happen with this process.
“I think what’s most problematic here is we didn’t have the conversations that need to take place around these books,” he said.
The State Board’s Instructional Materials Review Committee did hear brief public testimony Thursday on whether the first eleven books brought under the new rule should stay or go.
The books under consideration are:
- “Damsel” by Elana Arnold
- “Ugly Love” by Colleen Hoover
- “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins
- “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
- “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sarah J. Maas
- “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas
- “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas
- “A Court of Wings and Ruin” by Sarah J. Maas
- “1984″ by George Orwell
- “Romeo & Juliet” by William Shakespeare
- “Normal People” by Sally Rooney
The committee recommended three books all considered literary classics — “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “1984″ and “Romeo & Juliet” — be allowed to remain on shelves.
Of the remaining eight, it recommended seven of them — “Damsel,” “Ugly Love,” “A Court of Frost and Starlight,” “A Court of Mist and Fury,” “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” “A Court of Wings and Ruin” and “Normal People” — be removed from the shelves of every school library in the state despite just one person speaking in favor of removing just one of them.
For the remaining book, “Crank,” the committee voted to postpone further consideration of removing it after public discussion.
Department of Education staff said nonetheless all of these books contain excerpts with descriptions of sexual conduct that are not age and developmentally appropriate, which violate the rule.
“Staff believes that this material should be removed from all South Carolina school libraries, collections, anywhere else in the public school system that it might be available to students,” Cathcart says.
These are recommendations with those titles coming before the full State Board of Education next Tuesday.
Whatever decision the board makes is final and will apply to every district in the state.
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