Book Bans Go Statewide (June 2024 Updates)
Standing in front of the Federal Court Building in St. Paul, MN, on June 11, 2024, where the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held a hearing on Penguin Random House, et al. v. John Robbins, et al., our case against the state of Iowa’s book banning law. I am standing next to my editor; we are both holding copies of Last Night at the Telegraph Club. We are surrounded by members of the legal team including attorneys from ArentFox Schiff and Penguin Random House.
I haven't posted an update about banned books since March 8, 2024, which means there's a lot to update. Generally, I've noticed that there are fewer cases in which individual school districts are banning lists of specific books. Instead, more statewide laws are being passed that are so vague and overarching that they’re likely to lead school districts to ban hundreds or thousands of books at a time.
To fight these bans, lawsuits in many states are moving forward, and I continue to believe that lawsuits are one of the only ways we're going to stop this widespread movement to censor representations of LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and real history. In addition, several states are working to pass laws that ban book banning. Here's a list from March that round up those bills; since then, Vermont, Maryland, Colorado, and Minnesota have continued those efforts.
As always, I'm grateful to Kelly Jensen's coverage on Book Riot for helping me track this information down. You should all subscribe to her Literary Activism newsletter.
Here's what has happened around the country to my books since March, moving forward roughly chronologically:
SOUTH CAROLINA
In March, I received an email informing me that Last Night at the Telegraph Club was challenged in the Greenville County Library (a public library) in Greenville, SC. The person who emailed me reported that the librarians recommended that the book stay in the teen section, but they also expected that decision to be appealed.
Since then, South Carolina has issued new policies that would make it much easier to ban LGBTQ+ books under the guise of banning any descriptions of "sexual conduct." This policy is due to go into effect on June 25 unless it is halted by the state legislature. I've joined many parties including my publisher and the ACLU to sign this letter calling for SC legislators to block this policy.
LOUISIANA
Louisiana has passed a new law that requires children to have parental permission to check out books with "sexually explicit" material. This will have a massive impact on young people's rights to read and it will undoubtedly affect LGBTQ+ books, including mine.
PENNSYLVANIA
At the end of March, LNATTC was removed from Boiling Springs High School in Boiling Springs, PA, while under review due to a challenge. Jason Baker, assistant to the superintendent, told The Sentinel on 3/29/24: “They were not required reading, but they were available. ... The titles referenced were ones that were brought forward as a concern and have been set aside to hold for an internal review.” Don't forget: being "set aside to hold for an internal review" is the essentially the same as being banned, because the book is no longer available. The process of internal review can last for months or even years.
UTAH
In March, Utah passed a book banning law that allows a book to be banned across the entire state of Utah if three school districts decide that "the book amounts to ‘objective sensitive material’ — pornographic or otherwise indecent material that does not have ‘literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors,’ as outlined by Utah law." This week, the Utah State Board of Education announced that it will compile a list of these books by August 5 — and that this list will consist of books that local school districts will need to evaluate for whether they contain "objective" sensitive material or "subjective" sensitive material.
This not only means school districts now have to scramble to review a ton of books, it's also still incredibly vague and is likely to lead to hundreds of books being banned even though they're not remotely pornographic or indecent. That's what has happened in many states after laws like this one passed.
I don't know if Telegraph Club will end up on the statewide banned list. I have a record of it being challenged or banned in four Utah school districts so far, but I'm not sure if my data is up to date, or whether those districts will find my novel "objectively" or "subjectively" sensitive.
IDAHO
In April, Idaho passed bill 710, which requires Idaho public schools and libraries to move books "deemed harmful to children" to the adult section, or risk getting sued. What's "harmful to children"? According to the Idaho law, that includes "any act of … homosexuality." This law,which takes effect July 1, is vague and difficult to implement, especially for small libraries that don't have the room or the resources to totally separate children's and adult sections. Obviously, the homophobia is plain in this law, and I expect that my books will be moved away from YA sections, if not banned outright, in Idaho libraries very soon.
ALASKA
The city council of Palmer, Alaska, has written to the attorney general of Alaska to ask if a list of books, including Telegraph Club, meets the legal definition of materials that are "harmful to minors" under the Alaska criminal code. They want to know this so they can determine if librarians can be arrested for letting minors check out these titles. You read that correctly.
TEXAS
Some of the 100 books that were removed from the Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas last August, including Telegraph Club, will now be returned to shelves after being absent and inaccessible since last September. Yay! But it's not clear when those books will be returned, because "Fort Worth ISD officials have declined to say whether this process will be finished by the last day of school, which is May 23. Additionally, questions asking for specifics of how each book was deemed appropriate or inappropriate for certain age groups have gone unanswered, and officials have backtracked on the reasons why the review happened in the first place." This is often what happens after a book ban: even if the books are officially unbanned, they don't necessarily return to school library shelves.
In Texas's Rio Grande Valley, conservative book banning activists have targeted 676 titles at local school districts, including Brownsville, where five books from the list have already been banned. Of course, Telegraph Club and A Scatter of Light are both on this gigantic list.
ALABAMA
Back in 2022, Telegraph Club was moved to a restricted section of the St. Tammany Paris Library system. At the end of 2023, the person who challenged it and many other books withdrew the challenges because they were certain that the state would soon pass laws to censor books they deem inappropriate. Unfortunately, that has now happened. According to recently passed legislation, "If Alabama public libraries want to get millions in state funding, they now must move 'inappropriate' material for children, mandate library cards specifically for minors, and obtain advanced approval for obtaining materials — and they need to make changes this summer." This is going to hurt libraries and young people across Alabama.
IOWA
On Tuesday June 11, 2024, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held a hearing for the lawsuit against the Iowa book banning law. You may remember that I am a co-plaintiff in this lawsuit along with fellow authors Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, and Jodi Picoult; an Iowa student; and three Iowa educators and librarians. My publisher, Penguin Random House, has been on board since the beginning and is the reason I was able to join the lawsuit; since then, five other publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks) have also joined.
To recap: At the end of 2023, Iowa judge Stephen Locher blocked the law from going into effect, and shortly afterward the state of Iowa appealed his decision. I attended Tuesday's hearing for the appeal in person in St. Paul, MN, and I met the legal team representing me and my co-plaintiffs, as well as two of my fellow co-plaintiffs.
This Courthouse News report goes into some legal detail about the hearing; this ABC report is for a more general reader. Now we await the decision of the three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit, which could come anytime within the next two to six months (or even later, who knows!). Whatever the Eighth Circuit decides, the fight against book banning continues here and across the US, and I'm grateful to have had the chance to stand up for the first amendment. Stay tuned!
