Rutherford county attempts to ban 'Beloved,' 'Wicked,' and other books from schools.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE DAILY NEWS JOURNAL on Aug. 22, 2024

By Scott Broden

Key Points

• Board member Caleb Tidwell made the request for the books to be reviewed to determine if they violate obscenity law
• ACLU monitors board's actions on books
• Commissioner Hope Oliver questions why board would pull 'Beloved'
• Others urge board not to pull books from school libraries
• Father asks board, 'What message are we sending to our children by banning books?'

Elected Rutherford County school officials will decide if "Beloved," a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison, should be deemed obscene and pulled from campus libraries.

Board of Education members, according to their Aug. 22 agenda, will make decisions by Sept. 19 following "Library Book Review" for "Beloved" and the following six other titles:

• Queen of Shadows by Sara J Maas
• Tower of Dawn by Sara J Maas
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Skin and Bones by Sherry Shahan
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• Wicked (The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) by Gregory Maguire

Board member Caleb Tidwell made the request to review the books. Tidwell has made previous requests that led to Schools Director James "Jimmy" Sullivan agreeing to pull many of the district's 30 pulled books by April 28. This included other titles by Maas on Feb. 21 about two weeks after the fantasy writer made a Feb. 7 national TV appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show."

"I am 100% in support of following the law and making sure that our focus is on educational value," said Tidwell, adding that community members have brought the books to his attention. "The law is focused on sexuality explicit material and whether it's the nature of being obscene."

The elected school officials heard six speakers urge the board to not pull books from the libraries during the public comment part of Thursday's meeting.

"Banning any book is not OK," said Jennifer Edwards, mother of a graduate of the county's Riverdale High School and another child at Murfreesboro's The Discovery School at Bellwood.

Edwards told the board she read, "Beloved," a novel based on a "true story," when she was 15.

"My favorite book is Beloved," Edwards said. "Don't ban Beloved."

Board member Tammy Sharp after the meeting said each elected school official will be reviewing the books in question before making a decision on whether to pull any.

The board also heard Blackman High librarian Brian Seadorf asking the elected officials to build relationships with the school librarians to better understand the books in question.

"We are educators," Seadorf said. "We are parents, grandparents, siblings and friends. We are good people."

Seadorf mentioned the stress he's faced professionally the previous school year when the district pulled 30 books.

"Librarians were being publicly vilified in our community," Seadorf said.

The school librarians have each earned a required master's degree in library science and are an innovative and committed group, Seadorf said.

"Please just talk to us," Seadorf said. "If you have questions or issues about library books, talk to us. Communicate with us. We would be glad to have you come to our library for a cup of coffee and discuss issues. We will make time for you."

ACLU-TN monitors board's actions on books

The elected school officials also held a work session without discussing the agenda issue on the books. The board members then ended the work session and went into private executive session to seek counsel from attorney Jeff Reed of Murfreesboro. Among the audience members who witnessed the board's conduct is Kathy Sinback, the executive director of the of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee. She's also an attorney who used to serve as a legal advisor for Metro Nashville Public Schools.

"I hope they didn’t go back to executive session and talk about the books," Sinback said. "That would be a violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act." Sinback attended Thursday's meeting with an ACLU attorney to monitor if the board is violating First Amendment Rights.

The ACLU earlier this year won a $500,000 federal court settlement from the Murfreesboro City Council for attempting to prohibit continuation of the annual BoroPride LGBTQ+ festival and approving a community decency standard ordinance in 2023 ruled to be discriminatory. The settlement included the council agreeing to rescind both the 2023 ordinance and another ordinance that dated back to 1949 that defined "homosexuality," as prohibited inappropriate sexual conduct.

Sinback said she's concerned the school board will be making decisions without a thorough review process led by school librarians, educators and other experts to determine if the books are appropriate for students.

The ACLU executive director also said she found it "shocking" that "Beloved" was among the books to be reviewed to determine if they're obscene.

Sinback recalled reading the book that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 while she was a college student in the 1990s.

"It's a phenomenal piece of literature," said Sinback, adding that high school Advanced Placement teachers have provided instruction on "Beloved" to prepare students for AP standardized tests that can lead to earning college credits. "It's being taught across the country."

Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

"It’s a small but very vocal minority of people who are pushing the censorship or these policies," Sinback said. "We have no reason to believe that the majority of people in Rutherford County want a Pulitzer Prize winning book pulled from their school libraries.

"We just don’t’ think that’s fair."

Commissioner Hope Oliver questions why board would pull 'Beloved'

Others who have read Morrison's "Beloved," include Hope Oliver, an elected Rutherford County Commissioner. She serves on the commission's Health and Education Committee, which includes examining funding requests from the school board.

"That’s a great book," said Oliver, an elected Democrat who represents a district in La Vergne. "It’s the truth. The truth is not supposed to be pretty or ugly or whatever. She wrote about some truthful things. She writes about slavery and the fear of being enslaved, and that’s real."

Oliver is a former 25-year teacher who taught health science education at Whites Creek High School in the north Nashville area and La Vergne High School. She said book reviews should be done by school librarians with expertise instead of seven elected school officials who will represent an all-Republican Board of Education starting in September.

"I don’t think the board needs to be reviewing anything," Oliver said. "These board members have these hidden agendas, and they are the ones causing this issue."

If a parent has an issue with a book, let that parent make the decision on whether the parent's child should have access to the book, Oliver said.

"That's not even the board’s responsibility," Oliver said. "Our kids can’t read. How about the board do something about that."

Oliver said it's questionable for the board's attempt "to ban these books" when children as young as 7 obtain most information from hand-held devices and "not from libraries."

Others urge board not to pull books from school libraries

Book freedom advocate Keri Lambert with the Rutherford County Library Alliance told the school board officials they'll be violating the law if they pull the books in question from the libraries.

"The (U.S.) Supreme Court has also drawn the line," Lambert said. "They have affirmed, more than once, that children have the same First Amendment rights as everyone else."

Angela Frederick told the board that "Beloved" and "Wicked" have been available in school libraries for decades without students suffering ill effects.

Frederick expressed concerns that state and local officials in Tennessee have decided to label books as obscene.

"Libraries and librarians have become political fodder in the current culture war," Frederick said. "The law you are going to cite as your reason for removing these books is an unconstitutional law. It will be struck down in court."

The books in question are for older students who are approaching adulthood, Frederick said.

"It is developmentally appropriate for teenagers to mentally wrestle with difficult topics," Frederick said. "It is also excellent preparation for higher education."

Father: 'What message are we sending to our children by banning books?'

Alec Lanter also questioned why board members want to pull books from school libraries.

"What message are we sending to our children by banning books that speak to them?" Lanter asked. "Books that tell them, 'Other people have thought or experienced this, and it is safe to talk to your parents about it?'

"What message do we send our sons and daughters when we say, 'This book − which you relate to and which has given you the words you need to be able to ask me for advice − this is repugnant and only deviants want to read it?' Are we telling them that we love them and want to help them?"