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SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Spencer Cox signed a measure into law Monday that calls for removal of challenged books from all public school libraries across Utah if three school districts opt to pull them.
HB29, building on a 2022 measure targeting books containing "sensitive" passages, also contains a provision allowing school district administrators to pull books in certain circumstances without having to put them before a review committee.
The new measure, aimed at books with sexually explicit content, passed with heavy support from GOP lawmakers, who worried pornographic literature was making its way to the hands of school kids. Democrats, though, expressed concern about the trigger allowing for books to be pulled from libraries statewide.
The measure also sparked opposition from an array of organizations, including the Utah Library Association and PEN Utah, that worried the measure posed a threat "to the vibrant tapestry of ideas that should adorn our educational landscape."
HB29 sponsor Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, had touted the measure as a means of clarifying apparent confusion expressed by some school officials about 2022's HB374. It was one of 72 measures Cox signed into law Monday, the governor's office said.
HB374 led to a flurry of book challenges in Utah schools in 2022 and 2023, including requests that three religious books be pulled — the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Quran. The religious tomes were challenged in the Davis School District, seemingly by critics lashing back at HB374, but Davis school officials ultimately allowed all three to remain on school shelves.
Ivory didn't immediately return a call Monday seeking comment. He had argued, though, that the provision allowing for the removal of books from all Utah schools in certain circumstances creates "uniformity" in libraries rather than a "patchwork," with books pulled in some places and allowed in others.
Here are some of the key provisions of HB29:
- The new law differentiates between "objective" and "subjective" sensitive material, using definitions of sexually explicit material already spelled out in state code. School district officials have authority to remove challenged books with "objective" sensitive material — more blatantly sexual and pornographic passages — without having to go through a committee review process. Less blatantly sexual "subjective" sensitive material, when challenged, would face review by a committee, which would make the call.
- School district employees, students, parents of students and school board members may challenge books under the new law. The original version of the bill would have allowed challenges in individual school districts by all elected officials serving portions of the district.
- If three school districts, or two school districts plus five charter schools, remove a book, it is to be removed from all school districts statewide — a change some Democrats said takes away from local control. The Utah Board of Education may step in and vote to "overturn" the "statewide removal requirement"; but if the body takes no action, removal action proceeds.
