KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A new law requires all Tennessee schools to pull books with explicit sexual content or excessive violence off of library shelves. As a result, Knox County School's Board of Education is expected to pass a new policy that will implement language from the state's Age-Appropriate Materials Act.
KCS already had a policy for parents to challenge books in place. However, since the new law which went into effect July 1 teachers and librarians are expected to start pulling books before school starts in August.
The proposals follow national book bans against many LGBTQ+ stories and an uproar in April in Knox County over books like Gender Queer and Fun Home.
Fun Home discusses the impact that coming out as lesbian had on the protagonist's relationship with her family after her father killed himself. Gender Queer is a 2019 memoir that recounts the author's explorations of gender identity and sexuality from adolescence to adulthood, showing how they came to identify outside the gender binary and as a gender-queer person whose journey of self-discovery included experiences with sex.
One parent of a student in Knox County Schools, Kari Anton, said she's completely against a book ban of any kind.
"If you look at the arc of history, those who banned books and those who removed books from libraries never end up on the right side," Anton said.
Another parent, Sharles Johnson, said he does not want his children to have access to sexually explicit books in schools. He also said he wishes topics like LGBTQ+ issues and gender identity were taught at home, citing his own religious beliefs.
"They were throwing in something else that would have me have a conversation with my kids," Johnson said. "And so when I see a lot of that in the books, there is no reason all of that stuff that is being said."
However, Anton believes librarians and teachers would not purposely include harmful or obscene materials to students.
"It takes years to get a Masters of Library Science, and the teachers are well trained to scan through those books and make sure that they're age-appropriate," Anton said. "If you really have an issue with a book, you can always request that your kid gets an alternate assignment. That's never been an issue with any teacher that I've talked to."
Johnson said he's listened to Moms for Liberty, a conservative group behind the push for book bans. The Knox County chapter has started a list of books in KCS schools they would like to see pulled. The list said most have LGBTQ+ themes, and that those themes are the reasons the group wants the books banned.
The Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes Moms for Liberty as a far-right, antigovernment organization "that engages in anti-student inclusion activities and self-identifies as part of the modern parental rights movement."
Johnson said he doesn't agree with their stances, and said he believes bans shouldn't infringe on books with historical and cultural value is erasing history.
"I don't think that they truly care about culture, you know, especially being a Black man in America," Johnson said. "I believe that things should be told, no matter how ugly our history is. And of course, there was sexual violence that had happened to my ancestors or to the civil rights generation, which are my parents."
Anton also feels these book bans target marginalized groups, which can be harmful to students during a time when they start learning about their identities. She said removing books from libraries would discourage students from developing a love of reading, and said she was worried her children's favorite books may be pulled.
"I know what the library and my in my child's high school looked like before the law passed, and I know what it looks like now," Anton said. "It's a skeleton of what it was before."