Virginia's Madison County School Board has removed 21 books from school libraries, citing adult content, including famous works by Stephen King and Margaret Atwood.
It comes after the state's Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, in April signed into law a requirement for schools to warn parents in advance if sexually explicit reading material is to be used in the classroom. Schools were told to adopt new standards in line with the legislation by the New Year, however the Virginia Department of Education isn't actively monitoring compliance.
The Madison County School Board's new policy, dubbed "IIAD: Sexually Explicit Content in MCPS Library Materials," goes further than this, removing books from public school libraries for their sexual content if the school board deems it fit. Books can be reported to them by parents and taxpayers, the policy document shows.
It mandates that any description that falls foul of Virginia's definition of sexually explicit content—"depicting sexual bestiality, a lewd exhibition of nudity, [...] sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse, [...] coprophilia, urophilia, or fetishism"—can be considered for a ban.
On January 12, the school board voted to remove nearly two dozen titles from the Madison County High School library, meeting minutes show. Those included The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood, a dystopian modern classic in which certain women are forced to have children for a ruling class, and several King novels: It, Bag of Bones and 11/22/63.
"Hey, kids! It's your old buddy Steve King telling you that if they ban a book in your school, haul your ass to the nearest bookstore or library ASAP and find out what they don't want you to read," King tweeted on Wednesday, a post that was subsequently retweeted by Atwood.
"I'm not sure Stephen understands how creepy this is, considering the materials that are being restricted are openly pornographic," Nick Freitas, the district's representative in the Virginia state legislature, responded.
Also on their list were Tar Baby, The Bluest Eye, Sula and Love by Toni Morrison, The Tale of a Body Thief and Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, and the coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which addresses the psychological damage of child sexual abuse.
Others to be axed from bookshelves are The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, Furyborn by Claire Legrand, and fantasy-fiction Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas. All six books in the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi were also removed.
Several of the books removed from public schools have featured on the American Library Association's 10 most challenged books in the U.S. across several years.
The Madison Count School Board's policy was brought in by member Christopher Wingate.
"It's about trying to protect children," he told local news site the Madison County Eagle. "There are other books I'm not crazy about, but these meet the definition. If made into a movie they would be NC-17 or R."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
