Latest news with #InstructionalMaterialsReviewCommittee
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State board delays vote on removing more books from South Carolina public schools
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCBD) – A decision that could have made South Carolina the nation's leader in state-mandated school book bans has been put on hold. The State Board of Education voted Tuesday to postpone consideration of whether to remove 10 books from public school libraries and classrooms after several board members raised concerns about the review process. The following books were recommended for removal by the Instructional Materials Review Committee during their March 13 meeting: Tricks by Ellen Hopkins Lucky by Alice Sebold Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas Identical by Ellen Hopkins Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas Hopeless by Colleen Hoover Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie Collateral by Ellen Hopkins At issue is a regulation adopted last year that governs what is considered 'age and developmentally appropriate' material for K-12 schools, prohibiting books that contain descriptions or visual depictions of 'sexual conduct.' To determine what is 'sexual conduct,' the regulation uses the definition as outlined in a portion of the state's obscenity law. Some educators argued that the definition is too broad, creating the possibility for inconsistency in what is and is not allowed. Mary Foster, a Beaufort County parent and teacher, attempted to demonstrate that Tuesday while speaking in defense of 'Half of a Yellow Sun,' a historical fiction novel based on the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s. 'These excerpts are not from Half of a Yellow Sun but are from a book your board voted to retain: 1984 by George Orwell,' Foster said, after reading several explicit passages. To keep one and not the other would create a 'problematic' interpretation of the regulation, she said. Robert Cathcart, a staff attorney tasked with presenting each book, said that the board has already established precedent as to what is considered a 'description' of sexual conduct. In the case of '1984,' he said, sexual references were 'too brief, too generic, and too nonspecific' to rise to the level required for removal, but that wasn't true for at least one of the books currently under review. 'In this material specifically – 'Collateral' – these passages are long enough, contain enough explanatory detail, enough adjectives and adverbs to put the reader in that place and therefore paint that mental image,' he said. South Carolina's flat tax proposal would initially raise rates for most Further, Dr. David O'Shields, the superintendent of Laurens County School District 56, pointed to a section of the code in the obscenity law that says material should be considered 'as a whole' and suggested unintended legal consequences could arise if the board moved forward with removing the books. He noted Tuesday that only five of the 10 titles were available at one of the district's high schools and that some had only been checked out a handful of times. 'I can't in good conscience after having done my own autopsy of what we have, I cannot and will if necessary be the only dissenting vote because I think we're misreading the law,' he said. Then, there was another issue: the process by which books can be challenged. The regulation established a system by which parents can challenge materials in their child's school that they believe fail to meet the standard. Parents must make a 'good faith effort' to address their concerns at the district level first but can appeal local decisions to the State Board of Education. In this case, the challenge to the 10 titles originated from one parent in Beaufort County. That same parent has sought to have more than 90 titles pulled from public school shelves statewide. Critics argued that ceding that power to one person is a problem, especially when the outcome would impact hundreds of thousands of students. 'This is an example of one individual determining what rights every parent in South Carolina has,' said Josh Malkin, advocacy director for the ACLU of South Carolina. 'Regardless of how you might feel about these books, regardless of your political leaning, the fact that it's so easy for one individual to take away your rights should be alarming and a call to action for everyone.' Several board members seemed to agree. 'When does this thing stop?' asked Ken Richardson. 'I'm gonna be honest with you, I love Columbia…but I do not like to come up here every single meeting and have to vote on books that nobody in my area is even talking about.' 27 books have been challenged in South Carolina since the regulation was implemented last June, with 12 being removed or restricted from schools. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SC Board of Education recommends removing 10 books from schools
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WSPA) — The South Carolina Board of Education has voted to recommend the removal of 10 books from school classrooms and libraries. The board's Instructional Materials Review Committee held a meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss books that have received complaints. The committee has heard challenges to 27 books after a regulation was implemented by the South Carolina Department of Education. The regulation allows removing books or instructional material that contains 'sexual conduct.' The department said the regulation is not book banning, but dictates what books the government should buy. The IMRC recommended removing the following 10 books: 'Tricks' by Ellen Hopkins 'Identical' by Ellen Hopkins 'Collateral' by Ellen Hopkins 'Lucky' by Alice Sebold 'Living Dead Girl' by Elizabeth Scott 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' by Malinda Lo 'Hopeless' by Colleen Hoover 'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 'Kingdom of Ash' by Sarah J. Maas 'Empire of Storms' by Sarah J. Maas All of the books were requested for review by one complainant, Elizabeth Szalai. The committee's book removal recommendations will be evaluated at the full board of education meeting on April 1. So far, the board has removed 11 of the 17 books that have been challenged. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Yahoo
10 more books recommended for removal in SC from K-12 libraries
Christian Hanley, chairman of the state Board of Education's Instructional Material Review Committee, and attorney John Tyler during a committee meeting Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Screenshot/Instructional Materials Review Committee livestream) COLUMBIA — Ten more books are slated for removal from South Carolina's K-12 public school libraries, despite protests from the books' authors and school librarians. Librarians have already been required to remove 11 books from shelves since a regulation went into effect last June barring students from accessing books containing 'sexual conduct' while at school. Another six books have been allowed to stay, one with the stipulation that parents must give approval before their child can check it out. The full State Board of Education will make the final decision on whether to keep or retain the books at its April 1 meeting. All are available in at least one high school in the state but not taught in classrooms. Books recommended for removal Thursday 'Collateral' by Ellen Hopkins 'Empire of Storms' by Sarah J. Maas 'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 'Hopeless' by Colleen Hoover 'Identical' by Ellen Hopkins 'Kingdom of Ash' by Sarah J. Maas 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' by Malinda Lo 'Living Dead Girl' by Elizabeth Scott 'Lucky' by Alice Sebold 'Tricks' by Ellen Hopkins Source: Instructional Materials Review Committee Many of the 10 books the five-member committee voted Thursday to recommend removing tell stories about abuse and persecution, speakers said in asking the committee to keep the books on shelves. At least three of the books — 'Collateral,' 'Identical' and 'Tricks' — were written to reflect true stories of rape and human trafficking in an effort to encourage teenagers experiencing similar abuse to get help and raise attention for people who know little about it, Ellen Hopkins, the author of those three, told the committee. 'Identical,' for example, reflected the experiences of four of Hopkins' friends who were molested by male relatives, she said. Readers, many of them teenagers, have written Hopkins letters thanking her for writing a book so similar to their own experiences, she said. 'Not every kid's life is ideal,' Hopkins said. 'Who will speak for them? Somebody has to speak for them, including in school libraries.' In November, the committee decided another book by Hopkins, 'Crank' — about a woman addicted to meth — can be checked out of school libraries only with parents' permission. Ivie Szalai, who brought the challenges to the state level, said she has read and enjoyed several of Hopkins' books. But she doesn't believe they belong in school libraries, she told board members in the virtual meeting. 'I stand by my stance that I don't feel that they are appropriate for minor children,' said the Beaufort County parent. Others, such as 'Half of a Yellow Sun' and 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club,' tell the stories of historical events. 'Half of a Yellow Sun,' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, tells the story of three people during the civil war in Nigeria in the 1960s. 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club,' by Malinda Lo, follows a 17-year-old Chinese American girl as she discovers her sexuality in 1950s San Francisco. 'I am a Chinese American lesbian myself, and when I was a teen growing up in the 1980s and '90s, I often felt alone and confused,' Lo wrote in a letter to the committee. 'I didn't have access to books like this that would have helped me to better understand who I was. 'That's why I write books about LGBTQ+ and Asian American characters,' Lo's letter continued. 'I'm writing the books I needed as a teen.' Whether the books are important is not what the committee considers. Board members' decisions must be based solely on whether the books contain sexual content, said Robert Cathcart, attorney for the state Department of Education. And in the case of the 10 books committee members considered Thursday, they did, he said. 'While this material likely does contain many important themes and considerations, what this board and the committee is charged with considering is whether or not it's age and developmentally appropriate,' Cathcart said. Removing books from libraries takes away chances teenagers might have to find a book that interests them during a time when fewer children are reading for fun, two librarians and a teacher told the committee. Students who enjoy stories by Sarah J. Maas or Colleen Hoover, two popular authors whose books the committee voted Thursday to remove from shelves, might discover a lifelong love of reading that helps them in other parts of their lives, librarians said. 'I want books in my library that people want to read,' said Laura Haverkamp, a former high school librarian of 24 years in Columbia. Those students have plenty of other options, Szalai said. 'I hope that in the future that authors, if their target audience is children in high school, let's say 14 to 18, that they might consider removing that (sexual) material,' Szalai said. The books heard Thursday all came from Szalai, who said she has children attending Beaufort County public schools. Szalai was also responsible for four previous challenges, which she brought after her local school board decided the books could stay on high school shelves. Those decisions came before the regulation went into effect.
