In a split vote, Beaufort County School Board makes final decision on first 6 reviewed books
Three months after 97 books were removed for review from Beaufort County school libraries for suspected sexual or racial content, the School Board on Tuesday night voted to return six titles to the shelves in some capacity.
In a divided vote, a majority of the board agreed with the book review committees to return the six books to schools. Newly elected members Victor Ney and Elizabeth Hey voted against the motion; Rachel Wisnefski abstained.
The vote was 8-2-1 and only needed a simple majority to pass.
Four books’ availability didn’t change. “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Speak” will stay in all grade levels. “The Lovely Bones” and the young adult version of “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” will only be available to grades 6-12, as it was before.
The review process removed two books’ availability for middle school students. Copies of “The Kite Runner” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” were removed from four middle school libraries each, and are now only available to 9-12 students.
The two “no” votes, Hey and Ney, both appeared on conservative nonprofit Mom’s for Liberty’s sponsorship list during school board elections; although, neither of them said they asked to be sponsored. After the elections, their names were removed from the list.
“The makeup of those committees is not representative of the parents, of the families, and so forth,” Hey said. “I know from a lot of parents they are concerned about a lot of books or just an underlying tone of essentially ‘rape culture’ thats happening or they feel is happening within the school system or the materials provided.”
Superintendent Frank Rodriguez appointed the review committees, which consisted of seven members: a community member, a district-level administrator, a parent, a school administrator, a member of a School Improvement Council within the district/school, a school librarian and a teacher. The district followed the state best practices for the committees, plus the addition of a community members.
The books were originally challenged via email by outspoken local GOP politician Mike Covert, who used a list created by parent Ivie Szalai with his addition of “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.” Szalai submitted an email hours later, and the district considers both ‘original complainants.’
Rodriguez made the decision to pull books from library shelves for review Oct. 21.
More than a month later, review committees read and voted on the titles, only for Covert and Szalai to appeal the decisions. Only the original complainants have this power.
“The citizens of Beaufort County were on the edge of their seats watching this tonight. The foul cries of a minor few clamoring for these books to remain in the public school system are very minimal, but because of their sheer audacity against humanity, their stench reaches outward,” Covert said during the public comment section of the board meeting, after the decision was made. “Folks, do not be threatened by these individuals, it is our duty as publicly elected officials to do what is right.”
The appeal went to the School Board and now that a decision is made, it will stand for at least five years after the book’s original challenge date. Then, books can be considered again for removal from the libraries.
Over 20 people spoke about the book review at the public comment before the decisions were handed down, including four students who asked the board to vote to keep the books in schools.
The board added a motion for Rodriguez to reevaluate the form that allows parents to opt their child out of having access to books, which passed on a 6-5-0 vote. Some board members, including Wisnefski, Hey and Ney, said they wanted a more strict motion for a rating system for each library book to make it easier for parents to understand what their child would be reading.
“I think it would be better if the superintendent and [others] looked at this problem and came back to the board with a solution, perhaps a rating system is not the best way to address an opt out form. I don’t know,” Board Chair Christina Gwozdz said. “I understand what you’re driving at and I understand that very well, but I think it might be better for the board to let the staff come up with a solution to the problem.”
91 titles to go
Material Review Committees will meet and vote on 10 more books Thursday:
Milk and Honey, by Rupi Kaur
The Freedom Writers Diary, by Erin Gruwell
Looking for Alaska, by John Green
It Ends With Us, by Colleen Hoover
Impulse, by Ellen Hopkins
Glass, by Ellen Hopkins
Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
The district created a section on its website to track the status of the 97 books under review. It includes whether each title has been reviewed and the decision, as well as scheduled committee meeting dates and locations.
