SC Book Ban Updates- May 2025

In this episode, we discuss the ongoing issue of book bans in SC. We explore the current state dynamics, with a focus on the actions of individual parents and the state Board of Education's regulation (43-170) that deems any sexual material developmentally inappropriate. Get the tea on the books that are currently banned statewide in SC.

00:00 Introduction to the Liberationist Lit Podcast 

00:23 Understanding Book Bans 

02:16 South Carolina's Unique Situation 

03:26 The Beaufort County Case 

04:19 Regulation 43-170 and Its Implications 

06:59 Recent Book Challenges and Bans 

09:21 Statewide Book Bans: A Comparative Look 

13:02 How You Can Help Fight Book Bans 

15:30 The Importance of Libraries and Community Involvement 

17:32 Conclusion and Call to Action

Thank you for being part of the Liberation is Lit podcast! If you have stories to share, want to suggest topics, or just want to connect, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @liberationislit or visit our website at liberationislit.com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review! Remember, your voice matters, and together, through the lens of stories, we're making a difference in the world.

Transcript

0:01

Hey y'all. Welcome to the Liberationist Lit Podcast, where the power storytelling meets the force of social change. I'm your host, Tayler Simon, and it's just me today. And I thought I would give some updates on what's happening with book bans, especially here in South Carolina. So let's get into it. So first I kind of wanna go over what is the book ban, even though I. Talked about it in a previous YouTube video, you can find it on the channel. But a book ban is isn't what our state Board of education members are saying, where what we're doing is not a ban because you can still get off of Amazon. Well, any attempt to restrict, relocate, redact, or. Oh, I can't remember the fourth one. But all of those constitute as a book ban and restricting removal. Duh. That's the last one. And removing books from all South Carolina public school, libraries, classrooms, and curricula is. If that's not a ban, I don't know what is. So that is kind of the myth that the school board has been pushing lately, that what they're not doing is banning books because you can still get them from Amazon. That really ties into the trend that we're seeing about the dismantling and discrediting and all of the things that are happening with the public education system, being defunded, that's the other word I was looking for. Words are hard today, but. Defunding and dismantling all of these institutions that have to do with public education. Libraries, museum is really connected to this rise of anti-intellectualism because an uninformed society is an easier society to control. So what? What they're doing is definitely banning books. Now, why is South Carolina different? So. Typically book bands are done on an individual school district or county library basis. Even when somebody comes to, like a parent comes to a librarian or a teacher to say, I do not want my child reading such material. I would like that them to have an alternate assignment, or, please don't let my child check out these books. That is not a book ban. That is what should be happening. Individual parents. Having the autonomy to exercise their right of what they're comfortable or not comfortable with their children engaging in. And there's plenty of measures in place in schools, public and private across the country. And when one parent, as in. One parent from South Carolina has the power to remove access to books to every single South Carolina public school student. That is a problem. So. What is happening with that story is a parent out of Beaufort County was one of two that challenged 97 books a few years ago. The county put together a whole review committee comprised of parents, teachers, librarians concerned citizens, and they read each book. And made recommendations whether the book should stay on shelves or be removed. All of the books were returned back to shelves except for I believe, and now that one parent from Beaufort County, South Carolina is going back through that list and recommending. Them to the State Board of Education because this process was done before Regulation 43, 1 70. That was passed by the board, so to digress a bit. Regulation 43, 1 70 deems any sexual material automatically developmentally inappropriate for any student. Now they take the definition of sexual conduct or, sexual material from criminal code from South Carolina. However, they only use the one part that talks about, any descriptions or depictions that lead someone who doesn't know about sex to. No what's going on and connect it to sex as inappropriate. What the regulation does not include is the other parts of the criminal code that talks about the Miller test that federal law takes into account for obscenity, which takes the entire work into context for their artistic or literary merit. And the school board is not required to read the books before making their recommendations. So a lot of times they go off of quotes provided out of context, and they are cherry picking. For example, the first, 11 books, I believe, no, the first. Yes, 11 books that were removed that were South Carolina Department of Education staff recommendations. They are challenged, not removed. It included Romeo and Juliet to kill a Mockingbird, 1984. My tinfoil conspiracy hat says that those were picked intentionally. So they could be like, well, we're not gonna ban all books with sexual material. Of course, we're gonna take some books with literary merit into consideration. And yet they picked classics that have been taught for decades versus like some of the newer and contemporary books that contain L-G-B-T-Q characters, strong female leads, black characters, things like that. So that one parent from Beaufort County, going back to the story, she's going back through the list and her appeal is. Oh, well, Beaufort put all these books back on the shelf before regulation 43, 1 70. So now they're like, you're right, let's look at them. And oh yes, you have all these quotes that have sexual material reference in them. So we are gonna recommend them to be removed. Parents can challenge up to five books a month, and she has been maxing that out. The reason why this last round, she was able to challenge 10 books is because it was for February and March. Last month in April, we were really excited because even though in the instructional Materials Review committee recommended all 10 books to be removed, including to, telling to Ellen Hopkins's face that her books are obscene and should be removed, she was part of the meeting and they were like, no, we're still removing them. No offense to you. But yeah, no. And those books changed my life, by the way. But anyway. We were excited for the April board meeting because they were like, wait, maybe one parent shouldn't have all this power, so they delayed the vote. Fast forward to May, earlier this week actually, they were in an executive committee for a really long time. Presumably getting some legal advice on the regulation and what they should do, and we felt very hopeful that they would take into account, amendments. Proposed by the South Carolina School Librarian Association. Even though the state superintendent Ellen Weaver cut ties with the South Carolina Association for School Librarians, but they remain steadfast in their fight to protect the right to read in South Carolina, especially in public schools. So they're awesome. But they proposed, a couple of proposed amendments to the regulation that included just language around. Making sure that the Instructional Materials Review Committee is required to read the book in its entirety. Adding language about taking into account the book's literary and artistic merit. Having the process, include parents and things like that to give their input. So just things that if we can't make this terrible regulation go away, how can we make it better? And. Ultimately harder for people who want to challenge and remove books from doing that process easily. So again, like I said, south Carolina's a little bit different from book banning processes across the country in that we are one of three states that. Statewide. Utah was the first, and at first they were leading the charge with, I think it's up to 18 books now that have been banned in the state of Utah. We were coming up just behind in South Carolina. The third state is Tennessee, and they have not yet removed any book statewide, but they do have a process in place to remove books statewide. So the books that were banned for this last round of book bans in South Carolina, collateral by Ellen Hopkins last night at The Telegraph Club by Melinda Lo Who we did a book club with, South Carolina Association for School Librarians, FABB or Families against book bands in Beaufort And that was a joint event to have Malinda Lo come talk about her book, and that was really cool. I got to sit in for that. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I'm really tired of The chair of the Instructional Materials Review Committee acts like he can't pronounce people's names. But I, that's an aside, hopeless by Colleen Hoover. Identical by Ellen Hopkins, kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas living dead girl by Elizabeth Scott, lucky by Alice Sebold and Tricks by Ellen Hopkins. So. We were very hopeful in April and we got our feelings hurt here in May, but it's all good. We are still working on the freedom to read here in South Carolina. South Carolina now has surpassed Utah in the amount of books bans statewide. And we're at 21 now. And something that's very interesting to me is that there seems to be a trend in which books are coming up for a challenge. Obviously Utah has, special religious, influence over there. So a lot of their books challenge those assumptions, but what I've noticed is that there are several books that overlap with the books that are banned in Utah and the books that are banned in South Carolina that do not overlap with the top 10 books banned across the country just in different, like I said, local school districts or county library systems. Those books include the whole ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas a court of thorns and roses, A court of Mist and Fury, a court of wings and ruin, and a court of frost and starlight. Interestingly enough, the fifth book is banned in Utah, but not yet in South Carolina. Other books that overlap with Utah include Empire Storms, which was in the last round of, book bans book challenges and now bans in South Carolina. Living Dead Girl, which was also part of the Last Round Damsel by Elena k Arnold, and Tricks by. Ellen Hopkins and so do with this information as you will, but I just find it very interesting that there's a lot of overlap between the only two states that ban books statewide. So as far as what you can do to stop book bans, regardless of if you live in South Carolina or not, is pay attention to what's happening in your local district, especially if you have kids in the district. But like me, I am. I, I am the community auntie. I have no kids, but I am very passionate about literacy and providing access to books, duh. Because I have a bookstore. But paying attention to what happens in your local district, . Paying attention to any attempts to restrict books. For example, in Lexington County, here in South Carolina, the Hunger Games now requires parental consent for eighth graders. Why? Because it doesn't. Violate regulation. 43 1 70. So must be, we don't want to teach kids about questioning the government maybe. I don't know. But paying attention to things like that that is happening. Paying attention to school board elections. What we're seeing is a lot of Moms for Liberty candidates, moms for Liberty, is, has been. Designated as a hate group, by the Pew Research Center. Not a hate group, sorry, extremist group. Let me get it right. And they are placing candidates with limited to no experience, who will basically just work hard to make. Book Banning a lot easier in our school system. Ellen Weaver is a perfect example of that. She's always seen everywhere in Moms For liberty. Events and things, but paying attention, what's happening to school board, paying attention what's happening into your local legislature as well, because a lot of things affect the way libraries and schools get funding for certain things. For example, there have been budget proviso attempts to limit what kind of materials libraries are able to purchase here in South Carolina. Basically, if they are purchasing any materials inappropriate, they could risk losing funding. So a lot of libraries have been afraid to buy certain materials. Some libraries hold off on buying materials at all, and that, again affects public libraries and school libraries. About this fear of what kind of materials can we provide to our patrons and Greenville County libraries actually being sued by the national ACL U. Around their practices of book restrictions. Greenfield County public library system got a mess going on over there. But that's another thing, going to your library board meetings and paying attention to what's happening there. I'm definitely planning on attending the virtual library board meetings, not necessarily because we have problems with book censorship, although I have heard some things that I'm not happy with. For book censorship and otherwise, but I want to definitely see how this restriction for federal funding is gonna , affect our libraries because our library does really cool stuff like Richland Library is. I haven't been to a lot of libraries, but I can't imagine a lot of them are doing like the cool stuff. And I feel so grateful and privileged to be a part of that library system. And even though I'm a bookstore owner and I sell books, I partner with them, I attend their events. I go there all the time. Libby and Hoopla are my best friends. So. Support your local library, but also pay attention to library boards, and then providing access to these materials to kids and talking to them about the importance of reading and listening to stories about people who are different than them. We live in such a divided world and children do not have the same access. Proximity to a lot of people who are different than them. Thanks. Housing segregation. So providing these stories when they don't no longer have access to it and talking to them about their questions and having conversations and just expanding their worldview is important, but also reading along with them and expanding your worldview as well is super important. And finally just remain hopeful. Keep reading, keep having joy. Everybody has a role to play in this fight and what seems so overwhelming is when we look around and see nobody else seems to be caring about this, and I'm exhausted because I'm just trying to survive. We gotta pay for eggs out here, but when we all just pick up and do our part, it feels less overwhelming when we can trust and rely on community to take care of each other. So you're not alone out here. We're gonna make it through together. Stay hopeful. Hope it's a discipline. Thanks, Mariame Kaba. But we're gonna work through this together, and thank you so much for being a part of the Liberationist Lit Podcast. If you have stories to share or just want to connect, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Liberationist Lit, or our website, liberation is lit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and remember, your voice and story matters and together through the lens of. Stories, we're gonna make a difference in the world. Until next time.