Utah governor signs bill making it easier to ban books statewide

Photo: Unsplash // Elisa Calvet B

By: Katie McKellar, Utah News Dispatch 

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Monday signed a bill expanding on a 2022 law that allows parents to challenge books in schools, making it easier to prohibit “criminally indecent or pornographic” books statewide if they’re banned in a handful of school districts or charter schools.

An earlier version of the bill, HB29, would have automatically banned a book statewide if at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools determined it contained “objective sensitive material,” or “criminally indecent or pornographic” content. But before giving it final legislative passage, lawmakers changed the bill to allow the Utah State Board of Education to vote on whether to override a statewide ban.

The bill will become law on July 1.

Democrats opposed HB29, arguing it gives too much power to a handful of school boards to ban books statewide while standards may vary from community to community.

But Republicans including the bill’s sponsor Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, argued the bill was necessary to create more “uniformity” across the state when it comes to which books should be pulled from shelves.

“This is the antithesis of local control,” Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, who has worked as a teacher, said on the House floor on Jan. 30 while arguing against it. “With this bill, just a couple of individuals can take away the rights of parents statewide to make choices that best fit their children’s needs.”

Ivory, along with a group of parent activists, has been trying for several years now to ban “pornographic” books and materials in schools. He argued his efforts weren’t to “ban books” but to protect children from being exposed to sexually explicit books in public school libraries, noting parents and kids can still buy such books in bookstores.

In a House committee last month, Ivory was cut off by a point of order while trying to read a sexually descriptive passage from a book written by fantasy fiction author Sarah J. Maas.

“It’s time that we stand for the good and the clean and the pure and the powerful and the positive for our children,” Ivory said while arguing in favor of the bill. “Because that’s why we have public school.”