13 books removed from all public school libraries in Utah

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SALT LAKE CITY — Thirteen books will be taken off the shelves at every public school library in Utah after the State Board of Education ordered their removal Friday.

The move comes on the heels of the passing of HB29 during the 2024 legislative session.

The bill — sponsored by Rep Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan — allows for removal of challenged books from schools statewide if officials in three school districts (or two districts and three charter schools) decide the material violates state law and should be removed from their schools.

That became a reality Friday for these 13 titles (including six from the same author):

"A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas
"A Court of Mist And Fury" by Sarah J. Maas
"A Court of Frost and Starlight" by Sarah J. Maas
"A Court of Silver Flames" by Sarah J. Maas
"A Court of Wings and Ruin" by Sarah J. Maas
"Empire of Storms" by Sarah J. Maas
"What Girls are Made Of" by Elana K. Arnold
"Milk and Honey" by Rupi Kaur
"Forever" by Judy Blume
"Tilt" by Ellen Hopkins
"Fallout" by Ellen Hopkins
"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood
"Blankets" by Craig Thompson

Alpine, Davis, Jordan, Nebo and Washington County school districts removed the titles, which ultimately led to statewide removal. Some titles were removed by four districts while the rest were removed by only three.

The districts deemed the titles contained "objective sensitive material," which means pornographic or indecent content as defined in the bill's language.

How did Utah get here?

Ivory said in February, that HB29 was meant to clarify HB374, the controversial law approved by lawmakers in 2022 that created guidelines for removal from schools of books with sexually explicit content.

"It is time that we get behind protecting children in our schools, that it is a place of safety and decency for all children," Ivory said when the bill passed.

"Illicit pornography is often graphic, X-rated descriptions or depictions of sexual acts that are designed to arouse and excite people. We're not trying to ban books simply because sexuality is mentioned or a sexual encounter is briefly described," Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said in Senate debate before the bill's passing.

While the House eventually voted 52-18 to approve the legislation in February, it was highly controversial and hotly contested.

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 in January. She worried 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."

After the bill's passing, over 100 people gathered for a read-in at the state Capitol hosted by Let Utah Read to advocate for the freedom to choose what to read and push back against legislation that clarifies school library book challenges.

Kaitlyn Mahoney, owner of Under the Umbrella Bookstore in Salt Lake City, which specializes in sharing stories from LGBTQ perspectives and highlighting the voices of people of color, argued the law restricts marginalized voices and place the decision of what is deemed acceptable to read in the hands of a select few.

"I opened 'Under the Umbrella' because I know the transformative power of representative media. Reading saved my life," Mahoney said. "They are trying to ban us from books so they can ban us from life. I want to be clear that what is being banned is queer, it is trans, it is Black, it is brown, it is Indigenous, it is Palestinian, it is Muslim (and) it is everything that is not like them because they are afraid."