Bible Banned From Utah Schools After Complaint of Vulgarity and Violence

A Utah school district pulled the Bible from elementary and middle school libraries after receiving a complaint that it was "pornographic or indecent" as defined by a new state law. A committee of the Davis School District ruled that the book was not appropriate for elementary and middle school students under the Utah state law passed last year that empowers districts to ban books deemed inappropriate. Critics of the law see it as a way for schools to silence books that deal with people of color and LGBTQ+ issues, among other things. Here's what you need to know about this odd situation.

The district pulled the Bible from seven or eight elementary and middle schools, though it will remain in high school libraries, Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams said. The Davis School District is the state's second-largest, with nearly 74,000 children. Parents, students, district employees and school board members can challenge books. The district has a committee that reviews a parent's complaint about a book. It includes a facilitator, an administrator, an English teacher, a school librarian and at least four parents. The district committee determined that 31 books had "no serious value for minors" and removed them from April 2022 to May 2023.

The complaint about the Bible was made anonymously. It called the Bible "one of the most sex-ridden books around." Another person appealed the district's decision about the Bible. The anonymous parent's complaint was viewed as an effort by an opponent of the new state law to turn the tables on its backers.

Republican state Sen. Todd Weiler, who sponsored the bill in the Utah state Senate, called the Bible's removal a "fair trade" for the removal of other books he said contained "explicit X-rated content." "I don't feel strongly either way about the Bible in a school library," Weiler said. "I think there's probably good arguments on both sides of that, but I think that this whole petition to remove it was an attempt to make a mockery of the statute that we passed in Utah."

"It does illustrate how even a text of world historical importance can, through the current prism of how books are being evaluated, wind up in this prohibited pile of books," said Jonathan Friedman, a director of PEN America, which advocates for free speech. "In many places, it's very clear that it is an effort to erase LGBTQ stories, an effort to curb conversations about American history and racism or, in other cases, to deny young people information about their bodies," Friedman said.

Some critics said the incident illustrates the new law's flaws. Legislators should "go back to the drawing board" and "fix this law," said Peter Bromberg, co-chair of the Utah Library Association's advocacy committee. "Teachers and librarians are being demonized in these conversations, and unfortunately what that means is the legislators aren't really working collaboratively with teachers and librarians to put in place laws that would work," he said.