“Wicked” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” among 7 books under consideration for banning at Rutherford County Schools

Image of the book Wicked (Photo by Amazon)

The Rutherford County Schools Board of Education is expected to decide if it will ban seven books next month to comply with a new state law instructing school libraries to remove books with sexual or otherwise inappropriate content.

Keri Lambert, vice president of the Rutherford County Library Alliance, speaks at Thursday’s Rutherford County school board meeting. (Screenshot)

According to school board documents from its Thursday regular meeting, the titles in question are “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi, “Skin and Bones” by Sherry Shahan, “Queen of Shadows” by Sara J. Maas and “Tower of Dawn” by Sara J. Maas. School board officials have until Sept. 19 to decide whether to remove the titles.

Several educators and community members spoke to the board at its Thursday meeting, urging them not to take the books off the shelves. Among them was Keri Lambert, vice president of the Rutherford County Library Alliance, who criticized the state law as unconstitutional.

“This is the United States of America, and we are one of those states. We are all united through the constitution of this country, and we have a thing in our law called the ‘supremacy clause,’ which states that if a local or state law violates federal law or the constitution, it is an invalid law and not enforceable,” she said. “So not only can you keep these books in our libraries for our students to access, it’s actually what the law says you have to do.”

Lambert said she believes that removing the books would violate students’ rights and put them at a disadvantage to students in other districts that can access materials they need for a full education.

“Removing these books from our schools doesn’t respect the experts or the law, but rather caters to a small but vocal minority in our community while stripping away our children’s rights,” she told the board.

Local resident Angela Frederick noted that books like “Beloved” and “Wicked” have been in school libraries for several decades now, adding that students have “suffered no ill effects” from having those books available to them.

“The titles that you’re considering removing are for older students who are approaching adulthood. It is developmentally appropriate for teenagers to mentally wrestle with difficult topics,” she said.

Brian Seadorf, a library media specialist at Blackman High School who also came to speak to the board in support of keeping those books in schools, said many librarians were “vilified” in the community last year when the district had to pull 30 books. He spoke about the stress being placed on librarians due to the new state law, and implored the school board to work more closely with school librarians to discuss the books in question moving forward.

“If you have questions or issues about library books, please just talk to us. Communicate with us,” he said. “We will make time for you.”