Utah Bans Titles by Judy Blume, Margaret Atwood in School Libraries Statewide

Last week, Utah became the first state in the U.S. to ban an entire set of books across all public schools within its borders.

Thirteen titles, including books by famed authors Judy Blume and Margaret Atwood — the latter whose book “The Handmaid’s Tale” features a dystopian future where women are legally disallowed from reading — were ordered to be removed from bookshelves in school libraries across the state on Friday.

The decision by the state Board of Education comes amid a new state law that requires books to be removed when three public school districts (or two districts plus five charter schools) deem that certain titles should be removed – an action that strips other local school districts across the state of the right to decide for themselves the appropriateness of certain books.

Disturbingly, those titles, once confiscated, cannot be redistributed or sold to anyone else — the state law also requires the physical disposal and destruction of those books once they are removed.

The law went into effect on July 1. Three other states — Tennessee, Idaho and South Carolina — are poised to enact similar laws allowing the statewide ban on some titles.

The actions by Utah come amid a larger national movement by far right conservatives to ban books. That movement has largely focused on titles that promote LGBTQ characters and themes, Black or Brown lives, and/or promote critical thinking on gender roles and treatment of women.

Critics spoke out against the state law, voicing censorship concerns and denying students the ability to read books that contain representations of their own identities.

“The state’s no-read list will impose a dystopian censorship regime across public schools and, in many cases, will directly contravene local preferences,” said Kasey Meehan, Freedom to Read program director at PEN America.

Meehan added:

Allowing just a handful of districts to make decisions for the whole state is antidemocratic, and we are concerned that implementation of the law will result in less diverse library shelves for all Utahns.

“It’s a tragedy…. Many of those works are highly praised, some award-winning works of literature, others are books that many read for enjoyment, and none of them come anywhere near to meeting the definition of illegal materials and arguably they have a place on the shelf for voluntary reading for students for whom they’re developmentally appropriate,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

“These books can help teens understand that they’re not alone,” noted Peter Bromberg, co-chair of the advocacy committee of the Utah Library Association. “It might give them the language and the ability to talk about what happened to a trusted adult.”

In a statement from Let Utah Read, an organization that describes itself as “a coalition of Utahns, educators, parents, librarians, and organizations dedicated to preserving Americans’ freedom to read,” said that the bans go against the values of most residents in the state.

“Utahns understand that great American authors like Judy Blume, Sherman Alexie, and Toni Morrison are not pornographers, and no one should be criminally charged for selling, giving, or lending a book to a high school student,” the organization said.

The list of 13 titles that were banned will likely not be the last the state seeks to restrict — indeed, an outgoing conservative member of the state Board of Education lamented that they didn’t yet ban “hundreds” more titles she believed should also be removed from school libraries.

But one member of the board disparaged the rule, noting that it also took away parental rights.

“I don’t think it makes me pro-pornography to say the parents should have the right to choose with their children what they want to read,” that member, Carol Lear, said in a statement.