South Carolina educators and parents are having difficulty discerning school-appropriate materials due to confusion regarding the state statute permitting book bans.
Since August 2024, the state school board has been working to assist with the removal of contemporary books, such as Sarah J. Maas' "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series, from school libraries, according to the South Carolina Department of Education.
According to the state board's regulation 43-170, instructional and library materials cannot include "descriptions or visual depictions of 'sexual conduct.'" The board has the authority to permanently ban this material from all South Carolina schools when parents object to them with enough evidence.
Patrick Kelly, a high school teacher and director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association, said the board has not had a lot of prior experience removing books from libraries in addition to regulating instructional materials, but they have had to ban 10 of them.
According to Kelly, unless sexual conduct is openly shown in a way that allows a reader to visualize what is happening, the book will most likely not be banned. The board is constantly adjusting guidelines reagrding the statute since parents and the state often have different views on what a book truly conveys.
“It's also causing some confusion for educators because they’re not still 100% clear on what rises to the level of description of sexual conduct or not,“ Kelly said. “And it's causing some confusion for parents, too, because there have been books challenged to date that have been retained.”
Curriculum classics used in South Carolina school systems, including Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", were challenged in November 2024 because they imply sexual conduct, but were ultimately kept in schools due to a lack of evidence against these books.
Teachers can select from a variety of books for their lesson plans, depending on what they believe will best educate the kids, said Jamie Gregory, president of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians. Gregory advocates for local control rather than state control since teachers should have the ability to choose the books they want to teach.
“If they have determined that "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a selection to make for students, and obviously it is an appropriate book in a high school, then the state board should not be involved in telling them that they can't do that,” Gregory said. “There's just no reason for there to be that level of control at the state level.”
Gregory says that the recent book bans have contributed to the growing perception that school librarians are no longer trustworthy. She said this suspicion stems from the state board's strong stance that librarians are to blame for permitting some of these publications to be available in schools. She said that this is harmful, and she does not want communities to turn against librarians as a result.
“There's no reason for this to be happening right now,” Gregory said. “It's really unfortunate that that's the way school professionals are being treated, especially at the time in our state when we have a teacher shortage and many other problems in education that have nothing to do with the school library books.”
Gregory says the state could make improvements without enforcing book bans in schools by teachers being treated better and not being portrayed as the bad guys as a result of the state's control.
“There's a lot of room for improvement and we're always ready and willing to collaborate with the state department, with local district officials to help figure out something that makes more sense than the current regulation,” Gregory said.
Tayler Simon, the founder and owner of Liberation is Lit, advocates against book censorship with her bookstore that specializes in books by disabled, Black, and LGBTQIA+ authors. Simon has also argued against the school board's ability to pick and choose what should be banned. Parents are benefiting from this because the state board and the instructional materials review committee are not required to read the entirety of a book that is challenged, Simon said.
Liberation is Lit is primarily a used book store, that focuses on selling books by disabled, Black and LGBTQIA+ authors. They also do political advocacy against book censorship.
“Now all of a sudden, ... (parents) are using sources that pick explicit materials specifically out of context to use as evidence as why school districts should remove books from the shelves, and there is seriously lacking context,” Simon said.
A parent in Berkeley County challenged Mark Curato's "Flamer" for containing sexual material, prompting it to be banned on Feb. 5. Simon says the evidence offered did not support the regulation's restriction because it was not sexually explicit and instead is informative to students.
"The parents who make these complaints are lumping things that aren't... sexual materials used to titillate or arouse a reader," Simon said. "This material isn't used for those purposes."
While Simon said she does not think any book should be censored, raising public awareness of what is happening should be the first step in allowing communities to speak out against book bans.
“Unfortunately, the trend does seem that more and more books will be challenged and ultimately removed from schools,” Simon said. “People weren't really paying attention to what's happening, and now that people are aware of this happening on a state level versus in their individual communities or outside of their individual communities. They are feeling more empowered to speak up and do what they can to fight against censorship.”