Story by Mila Mascenik
Cover photo courtesy of Jenna Wine
Tara Gold has never experienced a book challenge during her four years as a media coordinator at Riverside High School in Durham. But preparing for one has been the primary way she has seen her district being impacted by the rise of censorship of library materials impacting public schools nationwide.
She has heard about challenges in counties near Durham, and with legislation concerning the content of library books being passed in other states and pending in North Carolina, she feels it is likely that a challenge will eventually reach her high school media center’s 14,000 books.
“Our district has been trying to prepare for that with what are those policies, us just proactively saying if this happens, what do we do,” she said.
According to PEN America, a national organization that advocates for free expression worldwide, North Carolina experienced 61 book bans across seven districts during the 2023-24 school year – Buncombe County Schools, Burke County Public Schools, Catawba County Schools, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Iredell-Statesville, Moore County Schools and New Hanover County Schools. A book challenge is “an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based on the objections of a person or group,” whereas banning is the removal of those materials, according to the American Library Association. Many of the bans that occurred during this period across the country’s public school libraries and classrooms targeted books featuring content such as characters of color, LGBTQ+ identities and sexual content.
Madison Markham, coordinator of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said the organization is tracking approximately 100 to 200 different bills nationwide that impact K-12 free expression, largely including the freedom to read, a number that is significantly higher than the organization has seen in previous sessions.
Two proposals making their way through North Carolina’s state legislature include several provisions about public school library and instructional content.
House Bill 636, titled “Promoting Wholesome Content for Students,” passed April 16 by the N.C. House of Representatives, would require public school districts to establish a community library advisory committee of five parents and five district employees, tasked with reviewing and recommending books and other materials to be placed in school libraries, investigating parent and community complaints about those materials, and reviewing materials before a student book fair. Additionally, the bill would allow parents and residents of the county where the public school is located to sue a school that fails to comply with the bill up to $5,000 per violation.
During the N.C. House K-12 Education Committee’s April 15 meeting to consider HB 636, some representatives raised questions about the bill’s nature, including whether it promotes the censoring and banning of public school library books.
N.C. Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, was one. She expressed concerns that community library advisory committees may examine novels such as “The Color Purple” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” focusing on parts that might be offensive to some individuals, rather than considering the books in their entirety, which could lead to censorship.
However, one of the bill’s primary sponsors, N.C. Rep. David Willis, R-Union, quickly shut down the idea that the bill aims to ban or censor books or would jail anyone for reading titles like those Morey mentioned. He referenced a suitcase full of books containing inappropriate content earlier in the day at a press conference.
“If I were to take one of these books and walk across the mall and sit down with one of the tour groups of kids that come through there every single day and start reading aloud and start exposing the book and the pictures in these books, it wouldn’t take very long for me to get arrested,” he said.
Markham said one of the main issues PEN America sees with HB 636, which it categorizes as a book ban bill, is its vagueness. More specifically, she noted how the bill would prohibit library media that “includes descriptions or visual depictions of sexual activity or is pervasively vulgar,” but it doesn’t define what “pervasively vulgar” is.
At the committee meeting, N.C. Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, another primary sponsor, acknowledged that some subjectivity exists in what constitutes “pervasively vulgar.” Hence, he said, the bill links the phrase to General Statute 14-190.13, a state law that defines terms related to offenses concerning minors.
Markham said that in other states with similar laws that include unclear language, PEN America has observed an “over-compliance” among librarians and educators due to uncertainty about which books to remove from the shelves and fear of losing their jobs. South Carolina’s Regulation 43-170, passed in 2024, is similar to HB 636 in that it discusses sexual content, though more specific in its definition, for “any age or age group of children,” and led to hundreds of books being pulled across the state, Markham said. South Carolina is one of three states, along with Utah and Tennessee, to permit statewide school book bans through state law.
Another related bill, HB 595, discusses several education-related topics, including sex education. It establishes strict criteria for selecting books in public school libraries, and, notably, would charge public school employees and librarians with a Class 1 misdemeanor if they distribute material deemed harmful to minors.
Both HB 595 and HB 636 use the word “harmful” to describe content that should not be available to minors in public schools and libraries. For Gold, the question of what books meet the definition of harmful is the most stressful part of HB 595.
“My question is always where do we draw the line because every single person is going to draw that line in a different place,” she said. “And I’m worried that we just draw the line at the farthest away place, which removes a lot of great books from our curriculum for the fear that some kids might be harmed by that.”
Tori Ekstrand is a professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media who teaches media law. She said that the First Amendment generally protects harmful speech; however, there are special exceptions in cases involving minors. Yet a state law that bans books about a particular subject in a public school library, she said, could potentially lead to an “overbroad restriction” on freedom of expression, which is typically problematic for courts.
Alternatively, placing books about certain subjects in a dedicated part of the library could be argued to be a content-neutral restriction, which doesn’t ban speech but addresses the time, place and manner of it, and is permissible by the government. A First Amendment scholar, Ekstrand said that from what she has seen, censorship rarely works and sometimes has the opposite effect.
The fact that, under HB 595, librarians could face jail time is “ridiculous” to Gold’s colleague Jenna Wine, a media coordinator at Riverside High School.
“It’s so frustrating to always justify why we matter and then justify why we are experts at our jobs,” she said. “We have master’s degrees; I have gone six years to school and two full years of library science to learn how to do this.”
Gold said much of her time in her role is devoted to instructing or supporting instruction with materials and ensuring the school’s library collection supports the curriculum. She pointed out that there are dozens of people ahead of her, including publishers and book marketers, who have determined that a book is age-appropriate for a high school collection. Regardless, librarians are labeled as pedophiles and groomers for putting the book on their shelves, she said.
At Riverside High School, when Gold and Wine add new book titles to their collection, age appropriateness is an important consideration. They seek out Young Adult books with positive reviews from librarians and other professionals who work with young adults and young adult literature, and that are recommended based on the ages and interests of their students. This process is followed for hundreds of books a year, and with limited shelf space and money, Gold said her school is very intentional about the books it purchases for its library.
“People say, ‘What do librarians do all day?’” Gold said. “I read reviews for books to make sure they’re appropriate to purchase for my kids, that’s a lot of it.”
Wine said that she and Gold have pulled books they believed were “too adult” for students. Students requested these books, and upon further evaluation, they were removed. There are some cases, Gold added, one being if the content is not age-appropriate, that the media coordinators will direct students to check out books at a public library.
Gold said Riverside High School strives to offer something for all students in its library collection, including those with differing beliefs from her own.
“I want to protect every students’ right to see themselves in the library and to see themselves in books, but also tell them if they see something that they don’t like, they don’t have to read it, they always have permission to set it down and walk away,” she said.
If a parent has concerns about a particular book in Riverside’s library, Wine said she would love to have a discussion with them. At the same time, she stressed the importance of parents talking to their children about books they feel may not be suitable for them. Having such dialogue with a parent, she said, is preferable to removing a book from the shelf entirely so that no student has access to it.
The school’s library website features a “Request for Reconsideration” page, which includes links to various resources for parents and families, such as the American Library Association’s Bill of Rights and Durham Public Schools’ “Parental Inspection of Instructional Materials” process. Gold said this process empowers parents and provides clear guidelines.
In April, the American Library Association released a list of the top ten most challenged books of 2024. “Flamer” by Mike Curato, a graphic novel, held the number ten spot, and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a young adult memoir, was number one; both are books Riverside holds in their library.
Concerning “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” Gold said Riverside has many students who are going through similar experiences with their gender and queer identity who feel validated by reading that others have gone through their situation. Graphic novels, like “Flamer,” which shares some themes with “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” are checked out most at the library, Gold said.
According to 2024 data from the American Library Association, the majority of demands to censor books in school and public libraries —72% — originate from pressure groups and government entities.
To Gold, conservative groups are being more critical of the book banning and selection process in a way she has “never seen before,” such as reframing the language of the American Library Association to suggest that their goal is to have age-appropriate literature in schools and that what is happening in libraries is not censorship or banning.
Amy Kappelman is the chair of the Chatham County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national organization of parents and grandparents who seek to empower parents about their children’s education. She said she tries to raise awareness in her county about bills being pushed through the assembly and at the federal level that relate to parental rights, including HB 636.
She defines the goal of the bill as keeping “pornographic” material away from public school libraries. Most of the books she has encountered that, to her, fall under this category contain a few lines or chapters of this type of content, but for others, it’s the entire book, although she said this is rare.
“I just am trying to protect our children from inappropriate material, that’s it,” she said.
If HB 636 does not become state law, Kappelman said she will continue to fight for and discuss the bill with her community and Moms for Liberty.
Wine said she should “absolutely” defend Young Adult books in Riverside’s library collection that are on the American Library Association’s banned books list.
“It’s also bred into us to fight for this stuff,” she said.
She said that for people who can stand up to book bans, librarians can support and uplift them in any way they can. At the same time, they should recognize that there are various reasons why someone might be unable to fight, such as personal safety.
As for Gold, she said that in another time in her life, she would be willing to “fight the good fight.” If she must leave her profession due to the increasing attacks on librarians, she would spend her time in other ways.
“I will go write those books instead,” she said.
