Amy Kappelman is a North Carolina Ambassador for Moms for Liberty, a non-profit parents’ rights group. She’s in support of a new North Carolina bill that would keep what she calls “pornographic material” out of school libraries.
“We’re not telling people they can’t read these books. They are welcome to read these books in their homes, go to the Public Library, order it from Amazon, but in a public school library, pornographic material should not be available.”
Kappelman says House Bill 636, titled “Promoting Wholesome Content for Students,” would create committees in each school to approve books based on criteria of education, quality, appropriateness, and cost. The committees would be 5 parents and 5 faculty, and they would review every book in a school library and any new books to be added. However, to some librarians, the bill is an overcorrection.
Jenna Wine is a Media Coordinator for Riverside High School. She says the need for committee review could make barriers too high for maintaining a collection.
“We won’t get any books, there would be no more books. Like it- That’s too much of a process, especially with how public education is currently that we are drowning already.”
For those in support, however, this is a absolute necessity, as the bill’s sponsors emphasized in a K-12 North Carolina House Committee Meeting.
The Primary Sponsor, Republican Jennifer Balcom of Henderson county, says the bill gives parents a voice in what students see, as opposed to locking parents out of the process.
“As a mom, I believe that parents should be seen as partners in education and not outsiders, and this bill gives them a seat at the table while still leaving decisions in the hands of a balanced local committee that includes educators to make those decisions.”
The bill did pass committee, but it wasn’t without issue.
In a voice vote of “Aye” or “No,” the bill passed committee despite Democrat Representative Julie van Haefen of Wake county, calling “division” which would have required a hand-tally of the votes. Instead, the bill came to the House floor.
“All in favor say ‘aye.’”
“‘Aye.’”
“All opposed ‘no.’”
“‘No.’”
“In the opinion of the chair the ayes have it, and House Bill 636 has passed its third reading and will be sent to the Senate”
Wine emphasizes that reading a book a student enjoys is key to developing literacy skills. With the proposed provisions of the bill, she says finding such a book might become much harder as processing hundreds of books via committee could drastically reduce the number of books that make it to school library shelves.
“If we get 10 books a year, that’s fine, it’s just- that’s only 10 books that like maybe 1% of our kids like.”
Even if this bill doesn’t become law, Wine still worries about what litigation like this means for librarians and media coordinators moving forward.
I’m W. H. Hayes reporting.
