Rutherford County Schools leaders vote to remove six books from district schools

Rutherford County Schools Board of Education meeting on Thursday (Screenshot)

The Rutherford County Schools Board of Education voted to remove six literary classics from school libraries at Thursday’s regular school board meeting.

Among the titles banned were “Beloved,” a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel from Toni Morrison about the horrors of slavery, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” a coming-of-age novel by Stephen Chbosky, and “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, a novel which retells the “Wizard of Oz.” In addition, the board also banned “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi, “Queen of Shadows” by Sara J. Maas, and “Tower of Dawn, also by Sara J. Maas. The only book to survive the review and vote was “Skin and Bones” by Sherry Shahan.

School Board Member Caleb Tidwell (Photo by Rutherford County Schools)

The seven books were reviewed at the request of Republican board member Caleb Tidwell, who argued that the materials contained inappropriate and sexual content, and that banning the titles was not a violation of the First Amendment as opponents of the move have claimed. So far, the board has banned a total of 35 books over similar concerns about inappropriate content.

Thursday’s vote came after several local residents packed the meeting room to debate the matter, with many supporters of the move citing passages from the books that they found most questionable. Among those speakers was local resident Hannah Faulkner.

“It is 2024, and here we are debating whether or not sexually explicit content should be in public schools funded by American taxpayers,” she said before calling some of the material “pornographic.”

Ellen Myrick, a local resident and book publisher, said that while she supports “parent’s rights to guide their children’s reading,” she’s opposed to banning the books in question.

“Whatever topics or themes you find objectionable are also accessible via that little computer in your kids’ pockets,” she said. “When you remove books from libraries, you’re removing access for those kids who don’t have the privileges of a smartphone with unlimited data.”

Keri Lambert, vice president of the Rutherford County Library Alliance, spoke against banning books at the Rutherford County Schools Board of Education meeting Thursday. (Screenshot) 

Keri Lambert, vice president of the Rutherford County Library Alliance, also returned to the board to once again voice her opposition to the move, adding that she believes it to be a First Amendment violation.  

“Parents who want to restrict access to information could request that their child not have access to library materials, but they do not have the right to restrict access to information for everyone’s children,” she said. “This appears to be a matter of someone trying to impose their ‘cancel culture agenda’ on our school district.”

The move follows months of debate locally and at school districts across the state about how schools should comply with state laws instructing school libraries to remove books with sexual or obscene material, most notably the Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022 and the state’s obscenity law.

The decision also came days after the American Civil Liberty Union issued a letter to the board, urging them not to ban the books in question. The ACLU statement argued that the label “obscenity” in particular is “typically reserved for pornographic, sadomasochistic, and purely, patently offensive, sexual material.”

“Under the First Amendment, books cannot be removed from school libraries simply because they are about same-sex relationships or contain characters with LGBTQ+ identities — as many of the titles you are considering removing do … Likewise, books cannot be removed from school libraries simply because they tell stories about race, racism and the history of racism in the United States — as Beloved and Homegoing do,” the letter read, adding that schools also shouldn’t remove books “simply because they contain references to sex or the human body.”

ACLU of Tennessee Policy Director Bryan Davidson said in a report from Middle Tennessee State University Sidelines that he was disappointed with the board’s decision.

“I was hopeful that adherence to our First Amendment constitutional protections would prevail,” he said following the vote. “And I was, you know, hoping for a bit of clarification as to what the process is for reviewing and banning books. And unfortunately, I think tonight just left us with more questions than answers.”