The Challenges Facing School Librarians in Tennessee

By
ALSC Intellectual Freedom committee
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Collection development and management has always been a significant part of the work of school librarians, but these days that work is complicated by outside efforts to censor those collections. So much of the advice around managing book challenges focuses on things within a librarian or school board’s control — developing robust collection development policies and updating them annually; creating an advisory panel of respected educators and family representatives to distribute responsibility for challenged book decisions; avoiding unintentional self-censorship. But what happens when legislation is passed that demands changes to those carefully-developed policies? What happens when the state takes control of your collection? Librarians in Tennessee are currently facing that challenge.

Read more: The Challenges Facing School Librarians in Tennessee

Enacted in 2022, The Age Appropriate Materials Act initially had limited implications. But the July 2024 updates have caused significant impacts. To better understand the impact of these changes, here is a timeline of key events:

  • February 2022 – SB2407 introduced by Jack Johnson (R-Franklin)
  • March 2022 – SB2407 passed and signed into law by Governor Bill Lee

The original act required each school library to post an accurate list of its holdings in public, usually on the school’s website, and for each district to establish and maintain policies surrounding titles that have been challenged by a student, a student’s parent or guardian, or school employee. For many schools and districts, these policies were already in place, and little change was required. The idea seems to have been that books could only be removed from collections if they had been challenged, reviewed, and found to be inappropriate.

  • April 2022 – SB2247 passed as amended 

This legislation expands the purview of the recently-established Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission to include school library materials. With this expansion, the commission was required to add two members, both active or retired school librarians. As amended, the bill allows residents to submit challenges at the statewide level where the commission’s findings would override any local decisions. It also requires each library’s collection to be evaluated and approved by the commission on an annual basis and for the commission to issue guidance to school librarians. 

When reviewing library materials, school employees should ensure the following standards met: 

1. Materials are suitable for and consistent with the educational mission of the school; 

2. Materials are appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access them. The determining factors will be based on an assessment of any mature themes or content (i.e., violence, sexual content, vulgar language, substance abuse); 

3. Materials contain literary, historical, and/or artistic value and merit; and 

4. The collection as a whole offers a variety of viewpoints. 

5. Materials must be in compliance with statutes and TN Code. 

  • January 2023 – HB0843 introduced by Susan Lynn (R-District 57, Wilson County)
  • March 2024 – HB0843 passed
  • April 2024 – HB08434 signed by Governor Bill Lee with effective date of 7/1/2024

This bill amends the Age Appropriate Materials Act to specifically define how those responsible for collection development make decisions. It draws upon the state’s obscenity law to provide more detailed provisions:

(b) For purposes of this section, a material that: 

(1) In whole or in part contains nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse, as those terms are defined in § 39-17-901, is not appropriate for the age or maturity level of a student in any of the grades kindergarten through twelve (K12) and must not be maintained in a school’s library collection; or 

(2) Is patently offensive, as defined in § 39-17-901, or appeals to the prurient interest, as defined in § 39-17-901, is not appropriate for the age or maturity level of a student in any of the grades kindergarten through twelve (K12) and must not be maintained in a school’s library collection. 

Though there is widespread support in the state for these provisions and a flurry of widely-reported challenges at the local level, only three appeals are issued to the state, all of which were withdrawn within a few months. In fact, despite the ETSU poll that shows 44% of respondents feel parents “should be primarily responsible for making decisions about materials or books that students can check out from or use in their school library,” none of the reported challenges have originated from parents challenging the holdings of their child’s school. Instead, as the examples that follow demonstrate, the books pulled for review have come from local elected officials, a group only 3% of survey respondents think should have that responsibility.

  • July 2024 – Local boards update policies to include new parameters; Rutherford County school board member Caleb Tidwell initiates removal of dozens of books

Knox County’s new policy includes the following statement:

Both school library and classroom library collections are maintained in cooperation with teachers, students, parents, and administrators.

This language negates the authority of credentialed librarians, denying the expertise granted by our years of education, training, and experience.

This report explains that district librarians received training on the new policy in August and September and that the district will be working a repeating cycle throughout the year with the following steps: 

1) School staff identify titles likely to be affected by the law; 

2) District staff vet identified titles against the language of the law; 

3) Schools are notified of the titles that need to be removed from their collections; and 

4) School staff remove books on the list from student access and update catalog records accordingly. 

Any additional texts identified for removal during the 2024-25 school year will be vetted on a quarterly basis following the same process. New purchases of library materials will be made under the new legal standard, to keep collections in compliance for the long term.

The report also indicates that, “the first cycle for school libraries is scheduled to be complete prior to November 29, and for classroom libraries prior to the end of the fall semester.” 

Unlike the other regions with long lists of titles that have been pulled for review, this list comprises books that have already been reviewed at the district level and deemed inappropriate, forcing their immediate removal from school collections. 

Knox County’s list also departs from those distributed in other parts of the state, which appear to have been generated through use of the Florida-based website Booklooks.org. Booklooks was originally developed as a rating system drafted by the Book Review Committee of the Moms for Liberty organization, now recognized as “extremist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center and has been central to the national censorship movement. Tidwell and Rosales both admit to having used this resource to develop their justifications for the removal of certain books. Notably, Booklooks offers no details regarding the qualifications or expertise of those authoring their recommendations. In Wilson County and Rutherford County, it seems titles have been removed without the input of those most qualified to evaluate them: school librarians. But in Knox County, the situation was different; there, librarians were engaged in the task as part of mandatory professional development.

A WBIR report on the books marked for removal includes the following statement: 

Knox County Schools said in September, librarians attended an all-day training session to learn about the new law and practiced identifying titles that could be affected. Over the fall semester, a committee also reviewed the titles identified by librarians as possibly being impacted by the state’s law.

It is notable that Knox County saw the value of their experts in their efforts to achieve compliance with the law. But according to Knox County school librarian Bethany Ledyard, the decision “doesn’t honor librarians like they think it does.” Instead, she sees it as “an ethical dilemma” that carries an emotional toll, one “that librarians in other counties haven’t faced. It feels like we are forced not only to deplete our own collections but also to bear the blame for which texts are removed. While the district gets to claim they had highly qualified librarians making the decisions, we were using the state’s criteria instead of our own judgement, so it feels like a perjury. It’s counter to our core values as librarians.” But the law has forced the hands of an administration that Ledyard says has been “extremely supportive.” No librarian wants to question the collection decisions of a colleague, but approaching compliance carefully and thoughtfully is definitively better than outsiders going over the heads of librarians to censor their collections. 

In addition to editing existing collections, the amended law expects any titles added to school libraries to adhere to these parameters, putting an unrealistic burden on librarians. Instead of evaluating forthcoming titles on student interest or merit, school librarians will be forced to select primarily on content. The only way to determine if a book has any examples of nudity or “sexual excitement,” the only way to decide if a book’s violence must be deemed “excess” is to read it in full, something that is simply not feasible for any librarian to accomplish.

If these requirements survive, the whole landscape of purchasing — and possibly even publishing — will be forced to shift. If, in the future, reviewers like myself are expected to flag content unsuitable for school libraries, the damage it would do to those titles will be irreversible. And given the market share school libraries offer to the publishing industry, publishers will be unable to ignore these demands, and the books they publish will change. As many have already noted, these restrictions apply disproportionately to books that center the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ experience. The lived experiences, the family life, the truth of countless individuals will be denied, not just to school-aged children but to all of us. Our stories make us, and if all those stories are silenced, where will we be?

So what can be done? Perhaps most obviously, you can draw upon those organizations already engaging in advocacy:

There are also those working on the ground at the local level, such as Rutherford County resident Brendon Donoho, who launched a private lending library for books that had been removed in his region. Or Julia Garnett, a student activist in the area selected to serve as the 2024 youth co-chair of Banned Books Week. Concerned adults can also point to this form, which allows Tennessee students to request titles that have been banned in their area. Working in partnership with independent booksellers and organizations around the state, Susan Groenke (professor of English Education at UTK) spearheaded this effort in response to the challenges facing schools. 

These laudable programs will help, but they won’t change the law. For that, librarians and intellectual freedom fighters will have to get involved in their communities, perhaps even running for office themselves. Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at MTSU, understands the plight of local librarians: 

The Bill of Rights doesn’t come packaged with a high school degree. Younger Americans are already citizens with Constitutional rights that grow more robust as they age. Librarians will understandably struggle to follow this law for the same reason that it’s unlikely to survive constitutional review in the long run. A law that essentially seeks to stamp out all materials with sexual or reproductive references is inevitably going to trample on the First Amendment rights of 17 and 18-year-olds.

Perhaps the law will be overturned, but until then, librarians in Tennessee will struggle with this, their biggest book challenge yet.

Today’s blog post was written by Sara Beth Coffman on behalf of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee. 

This post addresses the core competencies of  IV. Collection Knowledge and Management, V. Outreach and Advocacy and VII. Professionalism and Professional Development

The post The Challenges Facing School Librarians in Tennessee appeared first on ALSC Blog.

 Collection development and management has always been a significant part of the work of school librarians, but these days that work is complicated by outside efforts to censor those collections. So much of the advice around managing book challenges focuses on things within a librarian or school board’s control — developing robust collection development policies and updating them annually; creating an advisory panel of respected educators and family representatives to distribute responsibility for challenged book decisions; avoiding unintentional self-censorship. But what happens when legislation is passed that demands changes to those carefully-developed policies? What happens when the state takes control of your collection? Librarians in Tennessee are currently facing that challenge. Enacted in 2022, The Age Appropriate Materials Act initially had limited implications. But the July 2024 updates have caused significant impacts. To better understand the impact of these changes, here is a timeline of key events: The original act…
The post The Challenges Facing School Librarians in Tennessee appeared first on ALSC Blog.  Read More

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