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FARMINGTON — Davis School District officials have determined that the Book of Mormon and the Quran — challenged for their appropriateness on school library book shelves — may be retained.
The decision comes some six months after school officials decided the Bible could remain in district libraries and as Utah lawmakers mull changes to the state's 2-year-old "sensitive materials" law, which gave rise to the challenges the religious books faced.
An earlier determination to pull the Bible from Davis School District libraries caused an uproar among defenders of the book and figured in the debate last year over HB374, the 2022 measure meant to cull books with sexually explicit passages from school bookshelves. The challenges to the Book of Mormon and the Quran in a Davis School District school came last June, as the Bible debate raged and books in other districts around the state similarly faced review.
Davis School District officials used largely the same language in explaining the Jan. 8 decisions allowing two versions of the Book of Mormon and the Quran to remain on library book shelves. The religious books, the explanations read, don't contain sexual content or "sensitive material" in violation of Utah code.
"The passages cited by the person requesting review of this book do not include any sexual content that would violate the bright line designation or any other definition of sensitive materials in Utah law," reads the responses by the committees involved in each review, posted on the Davis School District website.
Meantime, Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, chief sponsor of HB374, has proposed amendments to the law in the current legislative session, presaging new debate on the issue. Ivory said the new proposal, HB29, aims to clarify provisions of HB374 that had raised questions among some local school district officials around Utah. The measure could get an initial hearing in the House Education Committee as early as next week, he said Thursday.
Among other things, HB29 would give unspecified school district administrators leeway to pull "objective" sensitive material from library shelves when formally challenged without having to first submit it for more in-depth scrutiny by a review committee. "Subjective" sensitive material would face review by a mix of district officials and parents to decide if schools should retain or remove it.
"Objective" sensitive materials, broadly speaking, represent blatantly pornographic and indecent literature, as spelled out in state law. "Subjective" sensitive materials, as described by Ivory, reflect less flagrantly pornographic subject matter that nevertheless may lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value, also as spelled out in state law.
HB374 spurred numerous challenges to books last year and in 2022 in school districts across the state, as well as backlash from critics who viewed moves to remove the literature as book banning. Ivory, R-West Jordan, bristles at the criticism.
"This has nothing to do with a ban. This has to do with age-appropriate limits with material we make available to students," he told KSL.com. Any books pulled, he said, would still be available at public libraries or bookstores.
Sen. Todd Weiler, co-sponsor of HB29, also defended the legislative efforts. When HB374 faced initial debate in the 2022 legislative session, supporters of action presented him with around a dozen books pulled from Davis School District libraries that contained passages that left him "shocked and appalled," he said. One book, he said, included a 500-word description of oral sex.
He suspects the challenges last year to the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Quran came from critics of HB374 aiming "to make a mockery" of the legislation. "Sure, you're free to take issue with the books, but they're not pornographic. They're not X-rated," said Weiler, R-Woods Cross.
The separate challenges to the three religious books stemmed variously from violence and sexual content in their pages. The challenge to the King James version of the Bible came first and sparked a particularly furious uproar. A Davis School District review committee initially called for the removal of the book from shelves last June due to "vulgarity and violence" in its pages. The decision, though, was appealed and the Davis school board reversed the decision later that same month.
Ivory said the debate over the religious books factored in HB29. "I think that was helpful in making sure that we clarified and addressed the standards and procedures," he said.
Aside from distinguishing between "objective" and "subjective" sensitive materials, HB29 states that if three school districts in Utah decide a challenged book should be pulled from school libraries, it must be pulled from all public school libraries across the state.
The outcome of challenges to books, whether to retain or remove, could be appealed to the pertinent school board under the proposed legislation. School boards would have to vote publicly on the appeals and spell out the rationale for whatever action is taken.
Though challenges to religious books across Utah have garnered plenty of attention, they represent only a tiny fraction of the literature challenged by parents and others. Books by noted authors have also faced scrutiny.
In Davis School District alone, 110 books, many of them fiction, were subject to challenges in 2022 and 2023, according to the district's online listing of challenged books. Of those, 69 have been removed from all school libraries, 20 have been retained at all schools, seven have been retained at high schools, seven have been retained at high schools and junior high schools and one has been retained at elementary schools. No decisions have yet been made on six other books.
