Rutherford County Schools approves book ban policy revisions
The Rutherford County school board unanimously voted Thursday to approve revisions to district policy regarding the removal of books with sexual or inappropriate themes from school libraries to align with a new state law that went into effect this year.
The vote comes after the board’s policy committee meeting on July 31, where officials discussed the need to revise language in district policy 4.403 to make removed material available to students who have parent permission. Thursday’s vote was made without further discussion from board members.
“If a local board of education or public charter school governing body does not make a determination [on a book] within 60 days from the date of which the feedback [from a parent] was received, then the student’s parent or guardian or school employee who submitted the feedback of the material may request a state textbook and instructional material quality commission to evaluate the material,” the district’s revised policy states, according to documents emailed to Tennessee Firefly.
The vote also follows months of back-and-forth conversations at school boards across the state about how to approach complying with the new state law instructing schools to ban books with sexual themes, excessive violence or nudity, among other content deemed patently offensive.
The law has been met with the support of right-wing advocacy groups like Moms for Liberty, an organization considered an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center that's worked in recent months across the state and national levels to encourage school boards to ban books they deem inappropriate. The group often targets literature that includes discussion of LGBTQ topics, such as “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, which follows the author’s exploration of gender identity and sexuality from adolescence, among other titles.
According to a report from the Murfreesboro Post, nearly 30 books have been removed from RCS school libraries under the instruction of district policies adopted earlier. In August 2023, the school district removed a book using the Murfreesboro City policy about obscenity. That policy was changed after a lawsuit was filed, and three books were retained, the report said.
School board members did not discuss any specific titles at Thursday’s meeting.
“The state and the school board have a substantial interest in protecting minors. There is a difference in health education and sexually explicit content,” school board member Caleb Tidwell said recently, according to the report.
