After receiving national attention and strong criticism from Utah state lawmakers over the removal of the Bible from some schools, the Davis School District has changed its process for reviewing challenged books.
The district’s school board unanimously passed the revised policy during its Sept. 6 board meeting.
Earlier this year, one of the district’s review committees voted to remove the Bible from elementary and middle schools. That decision was later reversed by an appeal committee — which is made up of school board members. The original review was sparked by a parent complaint.
District Assistant Superintendent Logan Toone explicitly told board members during an Aug. 15 board meeting this review and update of the policy began primarily because of the controversy.
Here are some of the changes the district has made to its policy compared to the earlier iteration:
A specialized level of review
Previously, the district had multiple review committees to read individual challenged books and decide both its age appropriateness and if it contains sensitive material, meaning pornographic or indecent. The district will still have those review committees, which are now called standard committees.
Going forward, a “specialized committee” will solely focus on whether challenged books contain certain sensitive material. Or what Toone and others have colloquially called the “bright line” rule. The committee will receive training on the policy.
The committee will not have to read the whole book but will review the request in its entirety. If it finds the book violates the definition in state code of “description or depiction of illicit sex or sexual immorality,” then it doesn’t have to consider the book as a whole work.
This committee can vote to remove a book, retain a book, or they can decide that the book needs further review and it will go to one of the standard committees. If it goes to a standard committee, the book will stay in the library while under review, but students will have to get parental permission to read it.
A June 2022 memo from Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes states that if schools remove books for violating the “bright line,” they will be in compliance with state law. But he added that “federal law may require more than application of a bright line rule.”
There will only be one specialized committee in the district and it will meet monthly to review book challenge requests. It will be made up of one non-voting facilitator, a district administrator, an English teacher, a librarian and four parents with students enrolled in the district, and is meant to complete any requests within 30 days of receiving them.
“That would help speed that process up of taking the book out if that bright line law is violated,” board vice president Brigit Gerrard said at an Aug. 15 meeting. “We could be more quick about getting it out of the library, off the shelf.”
‘Value to minors’
If a book goes to a standard committee for review, it will consider whether the book includes sensitive material, and if it has “any serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value of the material as a whole for minors.”
The previous policy asked committee members to decide the age-appropriateness of the book due to vulgarity or violence.
Toone said committees, as well as community members, reported it was unclear in the old policy how to make that designation. So the district took out the age-appropriateness language and now directs committees to focus on the “value as a whole for minors” when considering a book.
This change will most likely not significantly change the way that committees make decisions, Toone said, “but it will give a clear guideline to those committees as they’re looking at the specific content and how it relates to the law.”
The district’s new policy gives committees several things to consider when determining the value of the book, like timeliness, accessibility and artistic or literary quality.
After a standard committee has reviewed a book, they can vote to retain or remove the book, like in the old policy. But the new policy gives them a third option of requiring parental permission, something that other districts have done.
Rationale statements for decisions
Another change in the new policy is that all committee members, both standard and specialized, will have to write a rationale statement explaining their vote.
The identity of the committee members will remain anonymous, but the unidentified rationale statements will be posted on the district’s website along with the list of book reviews and decisions.
Removal of limits on book challenges
Previously, parents, students and district employees were limited to only two review requests per school year. That limit has been taken out of the new policy. Individuals are, however, limited in the number of times they can appeal a decision that a committee has made. They can only make two appeal requests per school year.
