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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah House has approved legislation that would potentially make it quicker to pull books with sexual content from school library shelves.
HB29, which passed the House in a 51-16 vote on Tuesday, would also allow for removal of challenged books from schools statewide if officials in three school districts decide the material violates state law and should be removed from their schools. The measure now goes to the Senate for consideration.
"It is time that we get behind protecting children in our schools, that it is a place of safety and decency for all children," said Rep Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, the bill's sponsor.
He said HB29 aims to clarify HB374, the law approved by lawmakers in 2022 that creates guidelines for removal of books and other material from schools with sexually explicit passages and content. What's more, its provisions requiring removal of books from all school libraries in certain circumstances, he argues, creates uniformity in judging the appropriateness of books in schools.
Rep. Carol Moss, D-Salt Lake City, spoke in opposition to the bill, as she did when the measure went before the House Education Committee on Jan. 23. She worries the measure allows for a tiny minority to dictate removal of books from school libraries statewide, thereby removing control from local officials.
"With this bill, just a couple of individuals can take away the rights of parents statewide to make choices that best fit their children's needs. This is the antithesis of local control," she said. Parents, she continued, "can and should be the ones that monitor their kids' reading, not the government."
The issue has been a thorny one as more and more books in school libraries across the state have faced challenges since the passage of HB374. In fact, the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Quran faced challenges in Davis School District, seemingly from critics who thought HB374 went too far, though, the religious scripts were each ultimately retained. Ivory said the new measure stems from requests from some school officials for more clarity in the process of reviewing and removing books.
HB29 doesn't change definitions of what's regarded "sensitive" or sexually explicit material, thus subject to removal. Those guidelines date to 2007, Ivory said. Rather, the new measure would add specificity to the process of reviewing books challenged by parents, teachers or others in a particular school district.
Books deemed to be "objective sensitive material" — more blatantly sexual or pornographic — could be removed by school district administrators, without facing review by a committee, as is now required with all challenged books. Committees would review less blatantly sexual books initially deemed to be "subjective sensitive material," gauging whether they should stay on shelves or not in part on their artistic, literary or scientific merit or lack thereof.
Books that violate "sensitive materials" guidelines in three separate school districts, whether through the "objective" or "subjective" review process, would be pulled from school shelves across the state. Likewise, books deemed in violation of the guidelines in two school districts and in five charter schools would also have to be removed from schools across Utah.
Moss expressed preference for the existing process that calls for all books to be reviewed by a committee serving the school district where a book is challenged. In Granite School District, within the Senate district she represents, she said 96 books last year faced challenges submitted by a total of six people. The review process for those books collectively took 100 hours, she said, and cost more than $100,000.
Despite the time and expense, "the process is working," Moss said. "HB29 would upend that process."
Utah Rep. Paul Cutler, R-Centerville, expressed support for HB29. It makes the review process "better," he said. "It makes it cleaner."
Two Republicans joined the House's 14 Democrats in opposing HB29, Reps. James Dunnigan of Taylorsville and Norman Thurston of Provo.
