Christina and Robert Burris, the parents of a high school student in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, attended a November 2021 school board meeting for a particular reason: to complain about “33 Snowfish,” a novel about homeless teenagers who escape sexual abuse.
The 2003 book, written by Adam Rapp, could “traumatize” teenagers with its “shocking” content, the couple alleged.
The school board responded immediately. With one member not present, the board voted 6-0 to remove “sexually explicit” books from school libraries.
“We should throw those books in a fire,” said board member Rabih Abuismail, lamenting that public schools want kids to read more about “gay pornography” than about Jesus Christ.
Another, Kirk Twigg, said he’d like to see the books before burning them, “so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”
Residents of Spotsylvania County, a fast-growing area halfway between Richmond and the nation’s capital, soon voiced their displeasure over the board’s move, prompting it to quickly reverse the decision.
But the battle over book access wasn’t over.
Mark Taylor, the superintendent of Spotsylvania County Public Schools, last month proposed shuttering all school libraries in the district. Doing so would be a crucial cost-cutting move, he argued, noting that the school system was facing a $21.8 million funding gap. (After county officials approved a budget in April, the shortfall came out to be $10 million.)
Just days after Taylor suggested shutting down school libraries, he announced that 14 books — including “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson — would be removed from their shelves, saying they had sexually explicit content.
When a parent in Spotsylvania County challenges a book, it triggers a formal review process by a committee that includes parents, teachers and others. The 14 books removed from libraries had already been deemed acceptable by book review committees.
But Taylor has argued that the removal is justified by a Virginia law requiring schools to notify parents of “sexually explicit” content in instructional material.
“Our recent decision to remove 14 sexually explicit books from the library does NOT prohibit teachers from including them in classroom assignments with parental notification in accordance with applicable law and policy,” Taylor noted in a lengthy statement to HuffPost, adding that the district…
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