High school shuts down its library because of book-banning state law

A high school in Wilson County, Tennessee, has shut down its library as a result of recently enacted amendments to the state’s 2022 book banning law.  

As Nashville Fox affiliate WZTV reported earlier this week, a spokesperson for Green Hill High School confirmed that the school has closed its library ahead of the 2024–2025 school year to sort through its entire collection of books to ensure that they are in compliance with H.B. 843, which went into effect on July 1.

Related:

Most of the books conservatives are trying to ban in Tennessee are LGBTQ+

Even when confronted with the data, anti-LGBTQ+ organizations say they’re just concerned with “sexually explicit material” in libraries.

Passed earlier this year, the bill amended the state’s “Age-Appropriate Materials Act,” signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee in 2022, which, according to the ACLU of Tennessee, requires schools to maintain and post lists of the materials in their libraries and to evaluate challenged materials to determine whether or not they are “age-appropriate.”

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In its original form, the “Age-Appropriate Materials Act” did not include a definition of what is “age-appropriate” or guidelines for how school administrators should determine whether materials are appropriate for a given age group.

H.B. 843 clarifies that books containing “nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse” are not appropriate for K–12 students, regardless of the context in which those descriptions or depictions appear in the material.

The updated law has caused concern among Tennessee educators and librarians that works of classic literature and other books could be banned from the state’s schools.

During debate on the Tennessee Senate floor, state Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D) noted that the bill’s definition of what is “inappropriate” applies to the Bible. “You cannot read the book of Samuel or Kings or Chronicles, much less much of the first five books of the Bible, without significant discussions of rape, sexual excitement, multiple wives, bestiality — numerous things. That’s before you get in just to, you know, very express and explicit descriptions of violence,” Yarbro argued, according to WKRN News 2.

“There’s no way that you could apply that rule to lots of books that are out there without simultaneously applying it to the Bible, not to mention there are other great works that have been in schools in Tennessee since there have been schools in Tennessee.”

“The enactment of this bill means that books that support the curriculum could not be part of the library collection,” Erika Long, Legislative Committee Chair for the Tennessee Library Association, told WKRN in March. “For example, schools could not have books on anatomy, books that explain puberty, and certain art books that are in library collections to support what students are learning.”

“It’s exactly what we said could happen if this poorly written law passed and it did and now, we’re seeing the ramifications of it, which is students are the ones who are suffering,” Williamson County School Board Member Eric Welch told WZTV Nashville of Green Hill High School’s decision to temporarily shut down its library.

According to WZTV, Green Hill’s principal also requested that teachers not maintain classroom libraries, further restricting students’ access to books.

“The law is also clearly in violation of the U.S. constitution,” Welch said, specifying that it violates students’ First Amendment rights.

Efforts to ban books that have swept the country in recent years have largely targeted books by and about people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community, with conservatives attempting to paint these books as “pornographic.” According to a recent report from the Tennessee Equality Project, seven out of nine of the most challenged books in the state have queer themes or were written by an LGBTQ+ author.

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