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Utah passed one of the strictest bills related to books in public schools in 2024. House Bill 29 (HB 29) allows parents to challenge books they deem “sensitive material” and it also outright bans books from all public schools in the state if those books have been deemed “objective sensitive material” or “pornographic” per state code in at least three public school districts or two public school districts and five charter schools statewide. The bill went into effect July 1, 2024, and it started with 13 titles on it.
The bill is retroactive, meaning that titles which met the state’s guidelines prior to the bill’s start date were included on the list. Per HB 29, any time a public or charter school removes a book deemed “sensitive material,” they must notify the State Board of Education. If that book meets the threshold of removals, all schools will be notified and expected to dispose of it.
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There are now 22 books prohibited in any Utah public school. Of them, 16 are written by women, and their average publication date is 2011. This means that most of these books have been on shelves and available for many years and caused no issues until this manufactured crisis. The list is as follows:
What is important to understand about the law is that despite claims this is about “local control,” schools in the state are forced to follow the decisions made in other districts. There are 42 public school districts in Utah, but two districts account for nearly 80% of the books banned statewide: Davis School District and Washington School District.
The three latest book bans came exclusively because of bans at Davis, Toole, and Washington school districts. Again, two districts are doing nearly all of the dictating of what books are allowed at public schools throughout all of Utah.
We’re going to continue to see more books added to this list in Utah as the school year carries on. These are not, of course, the only books being banned in the state where book bans are happening, despite claims by the federal Department of Education. Individual school districts are allowed to ban any books they deem inappropriate–which, of course, helps add more titles to the state list as only three districts need to remove a book before the book must be removed everywhere.
Utah is not the only state with such a book list. South Carolina also retains a sanctioned list of books that must be removed in every public school district. Their list contains 21 titles, making them the most censorious state when it comes to state-sanctioned book bans. While Tennessee has the legal mechanisms for creating statewide school book bans, it has yet to add any titles to a list. Florida officials have also distributed a list of books the state deems inappropriate and necessary to be removed from school libraries, though theirs is not codified into law like in the other three states.
These laws do not apply to private or homeschool institutions. That’s intentional.
Book bans in Utah are coming in waves, so anticipate more titles to be added to the list in the coming weeks, especially as the state works its way backwards from the date of the law’s implementation.