School districts await a statewide book ban list as Utah plans to retroactively enforce a new law. Salt Lake City School District pauses a plan to train all students on what restrooms they can use. Also will — and should — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint ever ‘seal’ same-sex couples in temples? See what members think. Tribune reporters Carmen Nesbitt, Michael Lee and Tamarra Kemsley, along with news columnist Robert Gehrke join to talk about the week’s top stories, including school districts awaiting a statewide book ban list as Utah plans to retroactively enforce a new law.

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The Utah State Board of Education is still determining how the state’s new book ban law can be applied retroactively. But a plan drafted this week offers a glimpse into how the process could work. The Utah State Board of Education is still determining how the state’s new book ban law can be applied retroactively. But a plan drafted this week offers a glimpse into how the process could work.

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State officials still working on implementing HB29 so the number is not yet known. Meanwhile, some districts pull previously retained books like ‘The Kite Runner’ — and they’re not likely to return. Currently there are more questions than answers about how many books will actually be banned statewide once a new bill passed by the 2024 Utah Legislature becomes law.

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While there are more than two months left before a Utah law creating a pathway for school book bans goes into effect, several school districts in the state have already begun removing books from their shelves. Utah’s governor signed HB29 into law last month, which would create a protocol for books to be banned statewide .

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During the most recent session, the Utah Legislature decided to continue its manufactured culture war by taking literature out of school libraries. Sure, they claim it's due to "pornography," and they're just "protecting the children." But if you look at the books getting challenged, the alleged pornography boils down to milquetoast stuff written by and starring marginalized folks.

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H.B. 29 was signed into law by Gov. Cox on March 18, further restricting materials in Utah K-12 classrooms and allows statewide banning if approved by at least three Utah school districts. The issue of book banning emerged again in this year’s legislative session. H.B. 29, which was signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox on March 18, not only bans books with “indecent materials” but grants school districts the authority to ban books throughout the entire state.

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The law, which Gov. Spencer Cox signed this month, is also supposed to apply retroactively, potentially putting those at least 36 books already banned by three or more school districts in limbo statewide. The problem is, officials are unsure how to retroactively enforce the law. That’s because a statewide “objective” sensitive material standard has never existed. Until now, districts weren’t required to use that terminology when making removal determinations.

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As a school librarian, I was dismayed to read misinformation about the “silver lining of book bans” in the Tribune’s March 24 editorial. To quote the editors, “A powerful and humane book that might otherwise gather dust on the shelves of a school library (Do most kids even go to their school library anymore?) may now receive a lot of attention and find a new audience among thinking people who will now seek it out.”

Read the full letter here

HB29, a new law that makes it much easier for a few outliers to ban books from every school district in the state of Utah, is a particularly odious piece of legislation. Rammed through by the Legislature’s Republican supermajority, and cravenly signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, the law would remove from the shelves of every public school library in the state any book that has been determined to contain “objective sensitive material”

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On behalf of more than 18,000 Utah educators, the Utah Education Association is asking the Governor to veto HB29: “a bill that is poor policy for public education.”

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A coalition of Utah organizations on Tuesday sent a letter asking Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to veto the controversial HB29, which targets books and other material with sexually explicit passages for removal from school libraries. The bill gives the State Board of Education the option of holding a hearing after three school districts or two school districts and five charter schools determine the materials in a book are pornographic or indecent, which would trigger removal of the materials statewide.

From KSL. See Full Story Here

Description goes hereRead-in at the State Capitol protests book banning bill

A group of over 100 people came together for a read-in at the Utah Capitol Thursday to advocate for the freedom to choose what to read and to push back against legislation that clarifies school library book challenges. This was hosted by Let Utah Read and came after the House of Representatives voted 52-18 to approve House Bill 29.

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Utah education advocates urged Gov. Spencer Cox in an open letter Tuesday to veto a bill the Legislature sent to his desk last week that would make it easier to ban books from schools statewide. The letter was signed by leaders of organizations including the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union; the Utah chapter of PEN America; national library advocacy group EveryLibrary; the Utah Library Association; and the Utah Educational Library Media Association.

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Kaitlyn Mahoney recalls not having access to the "language of me" growing up in Provo. Mahoney is the owner of Under the Umbrella Bookstore in Salt Lake City, which specializes in sharing stories from LGBTQ perspectives and highlighting the voices of people of color. Mahoney on Thursday joined a group of over 100 people who came together for a read-in at the state Capitol hosted by Let Utah Read to advocate for the freedom to choose what to read and push back against legislation that clarifies school library book challenges.

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Description goes hereOn Feb. 22 the advocacy group Let Utah Read invited people to the rotunda to support Utahns’ right to read. It was also a chance to weigh in on a bill that will soon make it easier for Utah schools to ban books deemed inappropriate.

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Description goes here H.B. 29 is the worst example of letting 1% control the habits of the other 99%. Under the bill, school district committees will be established to consider the very subjective evaluation of a book’s literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Different parents will have varied ideas.

From The Davis Journal: See full article here

A proposed bill could make public school employees subject to misdemeanor charges if they keep materials deemed “objectively sensitive” available to students.

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Description goes here Utah lawmakers are considering significant changes to Utah’s law that allows for books to be removed from school libraries. The proposal includes lowering the threshold for when a book can be banned statewide and would allow lawmakers to challenge books in the districts they represent.

From KSL News: Read the full story here

The Salt Lake Tribune compiled a list of 262 books removed across 17 school districts. One literature professor asks: “What are we going to be left with?

From the Salt Lake Tribune. Read the full article here.

As the right-wing book-banning movement justifies its crusade against U.S. libraries and classrooms with claims of "parental rights," survey data released Wednesday shows that 74% of parents agree or somewhat agree that book bans for public libraries infringe on their right to make decisions for their children.

Read report from EveryLibrary and Book Riot here.

Another poll, this one conducted by Utah firm Dan Jones & Associates, shows that Utahns strongly oppose book banning..

(From Deseret News; read here)

MARCH 30, 2023

OGDEN — School officials have removed two children’s books from elementary school libraries. One is about a young transgender girl and the other is about the history of the rainbow pride flag and gay activist Harvey Milk.

(from Ogden Standard Examiner; read it here)

MARCH 29, 2023

SALT LAKE CITY — A novelist and grandfather shares his concerns about the slippery slope of banning books. Laws like the one introduced by Rep. Ken Ivory don’t help protect children; these laws just prevent children from leaning.

(from Salt Lake City Weekly; read it here)

MARCH 28, 2023

NEW YORK CITY — The challenge to remove the Bible from Davis County school libraries made a national list of surprising things banned in American schools.

(from PEN America; read more here)

MARCH 20, 2023

FARMINGTON — A challenge was filed with district officials asking that the Bible be pulled from the shelves of the district’s schools in Framington, Utah. The school district doesn’t reveal who challenges books, nor does it ask why.

(from The Deseret News: read here)

MARCH 15, 2023

FARMINGTON — The Davis County School District has announced that it will remove the Nobel Prize-winning novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison from all school libraries.

(from KUTV: read here)

MARCH 9, 2023

FARMINGTON — Davis School District has fielded 80 requests for removal of books from school libraries in the system since creation of a new policy governing “sensitive materials” last year. 33 of the books have been removed already.

(from Standard Examiner; read here)