The Middle Tennessee school district continued discussions about how to align district policies with state laws that instruct schools to ban books with sexual or obscene material at Tuesday’s policy committee meeting. Read more about the debate among school board members.

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

Rutherford County Schools leaders are expected to make a decision on whether to ban seven books Thursday in order to comply with state laws instructing school libraries to remove books with sexual or obscene material.

The Rutherford County school board unanimously voted 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.

A viral tweet from the Tennessee Holler claimed that a Wilson County high school library was closed due to a new state law banning books with inappropriate content, sparking reactions from lawmakers. However, Wilson County Schools' Public Information Officer Bart Barker clarified that the library was temporarily being used for Chromebook and textbook checkouts, a normal procedure at the start of the school year. Barker noted that the library would reopen once the process was complete, and the district has had a book challenge system in place for over two years to comply with state legislation.

The Knox County Board of Education voted Thursday to revise district policies regarding the removal of books containing sexual or age-inappropriate content from school libraries, as required by a new state law that went into effect July 1.

A proposal to ban books depicting sexual imagery in Knox County Schools failed in a 4-2 vote. The board discussed compliance with a new state law set to take effect in July.